Factors Determining the Formation of Toponyms of the Kola Peninsula

Abstract

A map of toponyms of the Kola Peninsula has been compiled and analyzed. The factors that determine the distribution and evolution in time of the areals of Russian, Finnish, Saami and Norwegian toponyms are: • Natural conditions and, above all, the distribution of rivers, lakes and mountain ranges that influenced the migration of peoples; • The specifics of the economic activity of the population: fishing, maritime trade, reindeer husbandry, industrial development of mineral deposits; • Political factors: changing state borders, attracting or vice versa expulsion of foreign colonists, forced Russification. In the process of evolution, toponyms of different nationalities could interact with each other in different ways: somewhere “hybrid” Russian-Saami toponyms arose, somewhere Russian, Saami and Finnish toponyms turned out to be “mixed” and closely coexisted with each other, forming "integral" areals, and somewhere there was a complete replacement of toponyms of one nationality by toponyms of another.