Okrelonymi

Okrelonymi is a term used in onomastics to describe the phenomenon and study of multiple established names for the same entity across languages, cultures, or social contexts. It encompasses how a person, place, organization, or concept can be referenced by different names depending on linguistic tradition, official status, or audience, including endonyms and exonyms, pseudonyms, and historical names. The term is a neologism that emerged in scholarly prose in the early 21st century to facilitate discussion of name variation without implying value judgments about any given name.

The scope of okrelonymi includes legal names, stage or pen names, religious or cultural epithets, and toponymic variants that differ across languages. It pays particular attention to the social functions of naming: signaling identity, authority, affiliation, or historical continuity; negotiating political sensitivity in contested regions; and preserving linguistic heritage in multilingual societies.

Methodologically, okrelonymi research relies on cross-linguistic corpora, archival records, and field interviews to map name variants and their uses in different communities. It also addresses issues of authority, standardization, and power dynamics in naming practices.

Criticism within related disciplines centers on the definitional boundaries of a single entity and the potential erasure of minority or fluid naming practices. Related concepts include exonym and endonym, toponymy, ethnonym, autonym, and pseudonym.