태국인의 작명에 관한 연구

Abstract

Naming comes from the desire of those who want to live a happy life, and it reflects the society's culture. This study sought to examine how Thai naming changed according to periods, and to determine how the naming reflected the social and cultural characteristics of each of those periods. From the morphological aspect of Thai naming, the periods of Sukhothai Kingdom and Ayutthaya Kingdom saw mainly 2-syllable naming including the mono syllable, and the Rattanakosin Kingdom period saw 3-4-syllable naming and 4-5-syllable naming. In terms of language, pure Thai was used in the early stage, and in modern society, a growing number of names used Pali and Sanskrit, and a growing of nicknames used English and foreign languages. Meanwhile, Muslims mostly used Arabic and Malay in their naming. From the semantic aspect, the early-time stage saw naming using material nouns and simple motions or animal and plant names. Later, a growing number of names used abstract nouns, and many names were created using the desires of the times. Male names used words meaning knowledge, ability, greatness, victory and the like. Many female names used words meaning flowers, plants, beauty, love and happiness.