Oikonyms of Adyghe Republic: Principles of Nomination

The object of the study is the names of Adyghe Republic settlements in order to identify the basic principles of the oikonymsnomination, this is due to the need to form a complete picture of the toponymic space of a multicultural region. To determine the regional specifi cs of the nominations of the toponymic space, due to the interaction and mutual infl uence of a number of factors, a comparative method used. As a result of the lexical-semantic classifi cation of the Adyghe Republic oikonyms, semantic models of toponymsidentifi ed, based on the following nomination principles: toponyms of Adyghe origin refl ect in two categories –
“an object in its relation to the surrounding nature” and “an object in its connection with a person”. The analysis of the Russianlanguage toponyms has established that the nomination model “by the connection of an object with a person” is the result of
the activation of a secondary nomination: patronymic and ottoponymicoikonyms (in particular, hydronyms).
The study allows us to conclude that when solving the issues of standardization of toponyms from the position of linguoecology, local toponyms consider as a means of preserving the historical people’s memory.