Ethnosemantics of the protective function of Kazakh anthroponyms and ethnonyms related to folk beliefs

The article examines traditional Kazakh personal names and the names of tribal-clan associations, as well as the semantics of customs, taboos, beliefs, and superstitions underlying them. The relevance of the research is determined by the need to expand the Onomastic Subcorpus of the “National Corpus of the Kazakh Language” with anthroponyms and ethnonyms. Additionally, an important aspect is uncovering the ethnocultural semantics of archaic names and ethnonymic models, which have lost their clarity and turned into anachronisms – closed code structures incomprehensible to the modern linguistic community. This necessitates their interpretation through folk knowledge and traditional perceptions. The scientific significance and novelty of the article lie in identifying the protective, magical, and ritual functions encoded within the “negative” semantics of anthroponyms and ethnonyms based on onomastic material from the 19 th century. The study employed traditional methods of systematization, description, and historical-factual interpretation of linguistic material. The cultural-semantic analysis method made it possible to identify the types of anthropo - and ethnomodels connected to the practical life of the people and their mythological worldview. The research revealed that most clan-tribe names were based on nicknames, and their motivation was associated with the function of protection against “negative” or mystical forces. Personal names and tribal-clan names of the 19 th century reflected the “linguistic worldview” of the Kazakh nomadic society of that era, representing an onomastic interpretation of real linguistic content.