Surnames and nicknames of the Bulgarians from village Katarjyno (Znamenka) in the Odessa region

The article examines the official and non-official surnames of the village Bulgarians Katarjyno (Znamenka). The authors, based on empirical data collected, analyzed origin surnames and nicknames and use this material as a historical source. In particular, it clarifies the origin of the ancestors of the Bulgarians Katarjyno and establishes that some of them belonged to the Ottoman Empire to the military class. The populous and famous village of Katarzhino (Stalino, Krasnoznamenka, Chervonoznamenka, Znamenka) is located north of Odessa at the confluence of the Sredny and Maly Kuyalnik rivers. The extremely favorable geographic location at the intersection of the main routes from the Black Sea coast to the north of Ukraine (now the Odessa-Kiev route) and from Tavria to Moldova, bypassing the estuaries of the Podolsk (Kherson-Tiraspol), predetermined the rapid development of the village and its environs over the past two hundred years. The first Bulgarian immigrants to Parcani were close in origin to the “old” Catharians, but representatives of the second wave, who eventually began to prevail here, were already from North-EasternBulgaria. Thus, the Catharians, like the Parcanians, mainly formed from two groups of Bulgarians, but if the Catharzhans were dominated by migrants from southeastern (the subethnic group of thrones and partly rupets), then by the second − from north-eastern Bulgaria. Urrently in everyday communication nicknames are used much less frequently than in the past. Young people most often do not know their hereditarynicknames. Some Catharzhians believe that they do not have street names, but in reality, the villagers easily call the nicknames of those who live nearby. We set ourselves the task of interviewing to collect the existing street names of the village, thereby preserving this unique material for history and comparing them with the official names of their speakers. Accordingly, the corps of the official names of the Bulgarians of the villagewas assembled. An initial analysis of the collected material was also conducted.