ABSTRACT
Changes in systems of name-giving can offer significant data about the development of social groups, especially at a time for which we lack direct sources for studying personal identity. The creation of inherited kin names or surnames is not only a general European onomastic phenomenon, but also an important marker which reveals changes in aristocratic kinship. The author identifies three stages in the development of aristocratic names during the period between the official conversion of Lithuania to Catholic Christianity in 1387 and the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first was the combination of an old pagan name with a new Christian one, the second was the use of a name and patronymic and the third was the use of a personal name and an inherited family name. Each stage in name development reflected changes in the aristocracy as a social group, first and foremost the formation of aristocratic genealogical kinship. At the final stage, individual aristocratic names from the pre-Christian period were resurrected for a second, this time long life as the (sur)names of families who were descended from them.
