The use of personal names in new toponyms in Upper Austria

Abstract

The older basic words -kolonie and -lager are rarely formed with personal names. They are completely absent in the 20th century. The basic word most frequently found and currently most stable is -siedlung. The first part of the name is often the name of a farm or family and rarely a first name of the owners of land converted to building land. Designations according to land buyers are verifiable. Some of them are to be regarded as provisional names. They are used in the phase of basic development and the erection of shell structures. The deliberate use of names that are intended to recall a person is very rare. Here there is a striking difference to street names, where naming in memory of someone is much more common. This may be due to the fact that new development areas often have an amorphous structure as a reference object. They can grow and merge into each other or merge with old centres of settlement. Thus, there is no longer any autonomy. Street names are often introduced in new development areas, making the settlement name redundant as a postal address. Occasionally, names added to -siedlung remain popular beyond administration and cartography. An example of this is the Guttenbrunn-Siedlung. Although this is named after a writer whose work is problematic from a contemporary historical point of view, the name is able to live on in the vernacular (and thus also in the media), apart from official usage. In the 21st century, there is a major trend towards new basic words for place names, such as -hang, -blick and -city. These are not combined with personal names, most likely because it is hoped that such namings will increase the value of property. The most common determinant is Sonne (sun), while the most common newly coined place name in Upper Austria is Sonnenhang.