Gerencsér

Abstract

The paper studies the history of two occupational names in Hungarian language with the same meaning, the words gerencsér ‘potter’ of Slavic and fazekas ‘potter’ of Hungarian origin. The research involves the introduction of common noun, anthroponym, and toponym occurrences of the words across three different historical linguistic eras (11th– 16th centuries, 16th–18th centuries, and 18th–20th centuries). Based on my study, the gerencsér common noun referring to an occupation could enter the Hungarian language already during the early Old Hungarian Era in the western part of the country and it also served as the basis of settlement names. Fazekas, at first, was used only in the eastern part of the country. It began to spread in the western region from the 14th century, gradually pushing back gerencsér that became an increasingly rare dialectal lexeme by the 20th century. The method used in the paper may also contribute to the better understanding of the history of other words