Names of hotels, hostels and rental properties for tourists in downtown Budapest

Abstract

The paper discusses how multiculturalism is realized in the present-day onomastic landscape when hotels, hostels and lodgings for tourists are named in the downtown of Hungary’s capital. Based on names collected from online maps and popular websites offering accommodation, the author explores some characteristic features of these urban names (e.g. the frequent use of peculiar generic terms and the presence of additional components in the name forms referring to hotel chains, themes or services). Special attention is paid to semantics (e.g. specifiers indicating the location, the surroundings, an architectural feature of the building; the style of the interior design; the owner of the establishment) and language origin. The observed names belong to different cultural layers, providing references, for instance, to medieval sign boards, 19th-century monarchic and Hungarian national values as well as images of modern globalization.