Slavic anthroponyms in the judicial decisions of Demetrios Chomatenos

Abstract

The present paper deals with personal names mentioned by Demetrios Chomatenos which can with some certainty be identified as Slavic in origin. For the greater part, these are well-known Slavic names, often of Common Slavic origin, also attested in other Slavic languages. A couple of uncommon names is also attested, such as Svinjilo and Svinja (Sbēniloz, Sbina). Among the names of non-Slavic origin, it is the Saints' names that are most commonly found, but some others are attested as well, like Kuman, Sarakin or Kandid all of them well known among the South Slavs. The Slavonic ethnicity of the carriers of these names can as a rule be established by tracing their family relations. In the course of the 11th and 12th centuries, family names became quite common and stable in Byzantium, at least with aristocratic families. As first noted by Jacques Lefort, some paroikoi on the territories belonging to the monasteries of the Holy Mountain had family names, too, but these tended to appear sporadically and to disappear after some time. Demetrios Chomatenos' judicial decisions show that at that period family names were carried by the majority of the inhabitants of Byzantine Macedonia, Epirus and other regions (including women, sometimes even monks), not only the members of the elite. However, the Slavic population of these regions still often stuck to the ancient custom of naming a person only with a personal name sometimes supplemented by a patronymic. This notwithstanding, more than twenty persons did have, apart from their Slavic name, another one, usually of Christian origin. Although the data do not always allow for an unequivocal identification of the functions of each of these names, it can be safely assumed that they are not instances of double personal names, but rather that the name of Christian origin functions as a personal name, the Slavic one as a family name. This is quite certain for the family of Svinjilos from Berroia (Ponem. Diaph. 81) and very probable for the family of Ljutovojs (Litobonz) from Skoplje (59). People with double names are usually persons of some importance, members of local aristocracy, imperial clerks or high representatives of the clergy, which is indicated by the fact that their names are often preceded by epithets like megaliphaestatoz, pansebastoz sebastoz, kyr or by administrative titles like archōn. Family names are usually not grammatically different from personal names, mostly because it was common to simply take a personal name of an ancestor as the family name without further modifications, just like in Byzantine families. Chomatianos' judicial decisions yield only two derived family names, both formed from a Slavic stem with the Greek suffix -poyloz (Bogdanopoyloz, Serbopoyloz). Family names among the Slavs are attested at the same period in Dalmatian towns, whereas they are virtually unknown in the areas predominantly inhabited by Serbs, as evident from the Chrysobulls of Decani and other Serbian medieval documents