Hydronimia

Hydronymia is a division of toponyms, dealing with names of water (solid or flowing), ie hydronyms, eg names of lakes, wells; seas, rivers, streams, waterfalls, etc.

Hydronyms contain important information for geolocation, which has served in the past. for orientation in the field, the designation of trade routes or border lines. Historically, written records have preserved the names of some waters - mostly of great scope, and so of importance, eg Marek Agrypa recorded the name of the Vistula as Vistula (about 44 r.), The German chronicles from the 814 year the Odra established as Odera. With the development of Polish literature (the emergence of Polish chancelleries, church chronicles, judicial acts, inventories, inheritance records, etc.) began to appear words of Latinism calling water in the country. It should be noted that the reconstruction of the form is problematic, taking into account the differences in the graphs at that time.

Currently, the meaning of hydronyms arising from common words that have disappeared as a result of the development of the Polish language, or are used in limited areas (eg gwara), eg barley - marsh, whitewash, whitewash - meadow. >

In terms of meaning, there are three main groups of hydronims:

In the publication of the Geographical Names of the Republic of Poland (1991) ca. Toponyms, of which nearly 3,500. are hydronyms. In the Geographical Nomenclature of Poland (2006) approx. Standardized hydronyms (for the appropriate classification, two categories are also used: 1. Flowing waters, springs, waterfalls and 2. Standing waters), which have been verified by the Commission of the Site and Physiographic Objects. In addition, the Hydronym of the Vistula named P. Zwoliński contains the names of the Vistula river basin, whereas the San River names were developed by Rieger (1969) and the names of the Warta river basin were developed by J. Rieger and E. Wolnicz-Pawłowska (1975).

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