Luther, Calvin, Protestant or the early perception of the European Reformation in Portugal and the New World: Mostly uncommented compilation of some early records or echos.

Leipzig – the origin of the name is purely Slavonic! – It thanks to Karlheinz Hengst that the centuries-old onomastic legend about the name of Leipzig as Old Sorbian *Lipsk- meaning ‘place of lime-trees’ has been called in question. Instead of that legend and a possible new one consisting in the recent interpretation as ‘place in an area abounding with river water’ to a pre-Slavonic (Germanic) root the paper shows that the oldest evidence of the toponym finds an easy explanation as a purely Slavonic one. The <Libzi> from Thietmar’s chronicle is nothing else than Old Sorbian *Liḃci/*Liḃcě, formed as a plural inhabitants’ name on the basis of *liḃc ‘a lean, feeble, puny person’. This explanation is well founded by a series of similarly structured and semantically comparable Czech place names on the one hand and by the historical evidence of the root *lib- in several Slavonic languages on the other. Further, the author questions that later forms of the name containing -<zik>, -<zk>, -<zig> etc originally represent the suffix -sk-. They probably are an early alternative deminutive form *Liḃčky increasing the nature of the toponym as a nickname, the forms Lipsk, Lipsko of modern Polish, Sorbian and Czech presumably being the result of interpreting (written and spoken) Germanized forms from the 14th century.

Leipzig – Slavonic origin can be possible. This article is a positive and critical reflection on the opinion of Bernd Koenitz in this volume. The paper is an answer and tries to give acceptable reconstructions also by reason of the historical tradition of the local name Leipzig. The aim is to continue the discussion about the difficulties connected with the interpretation of the historical forms of the local name. Therefore some particularities in the process of reconstruction will be shown. On the one side the experience after a long time of investigations in the field of Slavonic-German contacts allows agreeing with a primary Slavic name formation. But the attempt to reconstruct further derivations of the primary Slavic form of the toponym is refused. Therefore on the other hand more convincing reconstructed Slavic forms are given.

The previous interpretations of the place name Leipzig, 1015 in urbe Libzi, as Old Sorbian *Liṕsk(o) ‘Lindenort’ (place of linden trees) and as the Germanic-Slavic compound name *Libьcь or *Libьsk(o) ‘place in an area of abundant fluvial water’ are found questionable by Bernd Koenitz and rightly so. His new explanation of the name as Old Sorbian *Lib́cě ‘settlement of the weaklings’ from the Proto-Slavic *libъ ‘weak, lean, sickly’ or as ‘settlement of the Lib́c family’ with the personal name Proto-Slavic *Libьcь is well founded. This interpretation is further supported by the Russian surnames Liba, Libov and others, additionally by the Czech place names Studce, Trubce, Chylec among others, which are more supportive of *Lib́cě ‘settlement of the weaklings’, as a nickname, rather than ‘settlement of the Lib́c´ family’.

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In the first part of this article definitions of the terms nomeme, allonome, and type of realization are given. Any analysis of a given set of proper names must part from spoken or written realizations, which, in analogy to the term allophone, shall be called allonomes. It is the analyst's task to find out which of these allonomes were or are functionally identical for the group of speakers in question. Thus Mathias and Matheus are two different names for the speakers of modern German, but were functionally identical for the inhabitants of medieval Regensburg. Therefore we may say, for them Mathias and Matheus were allonomes of a mental unit which we call the nomeme /MATHEIS/. However, as the realization of the different nomemes is not quite arbitrary, but works according to specific patterns or types, the existence of a third, intermediate level must be assumed, on which the speaker decides, which type he will apply in order to realize a certain nomeme. This level shall be called the level of the types of realization. - The second part of this article applies the nomematic point of view to toponymy. Also in toponymy the nomeme serves as a means to individualize and to identify a real object. As such the nomeme is stored up in the brain, awaiting to be realized either as phono-allonome in speech or as grapho-allonome in writing. Thus the nomeme /K/ refers to at least ten real objects, being realized in a limited number of grapho-allonomes and a considerably larger number of phono-allonomes, most of which are known to local speakers only. The nomematic point of view is especially useful in historical onomastics insofar as it gives a more precise insight into the processes underlying place name transfer in language contact areas and diachronic change in toponymy in general. Finally differences between the anthroponymic and the toponymic nomeme are pointed out.

Den Spitznamen (SpN) als einer spezifischen Art der Benennung wurde im Allgemeinen große Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet. Mehrere Autoren beschäftigen sich mit Struktur, Motivation und Klassifikation nach den verschiedensten Kriterien. Mit MATEJCIK diskutierten wir in den Seminararbeiten über SpN, jedoch schenkte ich Ihnen kaum Aufmerksamkeit, weil mir dieser Bereich schon genug erforscht schien - doch dann interessierte ich mich für die SpN in den slowakischen Dörfern. Durch den Vergleich verschiedener SpN traten allmählich gewisse gemeinsame und unterschiedliche Eigenschaften hervor, und es kamen viele Fragen auf, die ich zu beantworten versuchte.

Nazi ideology marked a new dimension of the political use of place names in Germany - not only in terms of the huge number of renamed places, but also with regard to the quality of the changes. In the 1930's thousands of place names were changed in the Eastern provinces of the Third Reich. The aim underlying these changes was to cleanse the map by erasing Slavonic (Sorbian, Polish) and Baltic historical elements present in those place names. Most of the changes took place in Eastern, Prussia, Upper Silesia and Eastern Pomerania, which today are Polish and Russian territories. Less known is the fact, that there was a considerable number of changes in those territories, that after the Second World War constituated the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany (1949-1990 the German Democratic Republic), especially in the region of Lusatia inhabited by both Germans and Sorbs. Based mainly on archive material, the article looks at the historical background for the ideological use of place names in two totalitarian systems: Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. It tries to give an answer to the following questions: Which parts of the territory in question were most affected by the Nazi renaming action? How did Nazi authorities manage to implement the place name changes? How can we classify the changes from an onomastic point of view? How can we explain that only 55% of the Nazi renamings were cancelled after the end of the Second World War? How can we explain the difference between Saxony on the one hand (where nearly 80% of the historical names were restored after the war) and Brandenburg on the other hand (where most of the Nazi names are still official names today)? The central issue for both the implementation of Nazi name changes in the 1930's and for the question of maintaining or rejecting Nazi place names after 1945 seems to be the minority problem, i.e. the German-Sorbian relations. What is most striking for us today is the contrast between official East German antifascist propaganda and the tacit admission of Nazi language symbols to live on not only on the place name signs of towns and villages, but also in the consciousness of the people.

The street names of Bayreuth from the Middle Ages to present days are examined in the context of cultural history. Medieval street names reflect the mentality of the time, the way people viewed the reality of their town. In contrast to modern times, street names were always related to a distinctive feature that proved to be relevant to the people in everyday communication. Street names were not officially given, they were rather „found out', i.e. they emerged from a collective agreement among the users as to what was important for orientation, traffic or trade (Haupt Gaße 'Main Street', Marktgasse 'Market Street', Praytte gaß 'Broad Street', Ochsengasse, after a house owner). A new paradigm that has remained dominant until nowadays appears in the l8th century. Street names are no langer the result of collective perception. They are given by national or local authorities in order to honour distinguished persons (kings and princes, politicians, generals, poets, artists, composers, benefactors) or to remind people of relevant facts (e.g. military victories). Street names, also supported by their fixation in street signs, acquire a new dimension. They are intended to reinforce cultural memory as well as political propaganda. As a reaction to the strong ideologization during the Nazi regime, the street names given in Bayreuth after World War II show, in general, an unpolitical tendency. Numerous street names referring to Richard Wagner, his family and his works clearly reveal the significance of the famous composer for Bayreuth's cultural identity.