THE EARLIEST OIKONYMS OF THE OSTROH REGION WITH THE POSSESSIVE SUFFIX -inъ: THE CASE OF LIUCHYN

Abstract

The article analyses the origin of the name of the village of Liuchyn, located in Rivne District of Rivne Region. In the period of the late Middle Ages and the early modern era, the settlement formed part of the Ostroh volost, a landed district belonging to the Princes of Ostroh. As of 1603, in addition to Liuchyn itself, the volost included a further eight settlements with typologically similar names: Bylchyn, Bilotyn, Dobryn, Kapustyn, Khotychyn, Kryvyn, Kunyn, and Netishyn. The presence in all these oikonyms of the possessive suffix *-inъ points to the name of the founder or one of the earliest owners of the villages. Approximately one third of the settlements listed above emerged in the mid-sixteenth century as a result of the colonisation of sparsely populated areas, while the remainder most probably existed considerably earlier, although the exact dates of their foundation remain unknown.
The article critically revisits the hypothesis that derives the oikonym Liuchyn from the personal name Liut and puts forward an alternative interpretation linking the place name to a specific historical figure, namely Liutyk Nebohatyi, a Volhynian boyar who is mentioned in a number of documents dating from the last third of the fifteenth and the early sixteenth century. An analysis of diverse types of evidence – including charters, letters, and court records – makes it possible to trace Liutyk Nebohatyi’s property interests and social connections within the Pohoryna region, of which the Ostroh volost formed part. Although no direct evidence has been found to demonstrate Liutyk’s service to the Princes of Ostroh, the combination of indirect data and the rarity of the anthroponym provide grounds for regarding him as a possible founder or early owner of Liuchyn, which appears in the earliest known sources under the name Liutchyn. The subsequent evolution of the place name may be explained by the regular phonetic simplification of the consonant cluster -tch- in spoken language, which resulted in the transition from the form Liutchyn to the modern name Liuchyn.