XVIII amžiaus studijos / The Eighteenth Century Studies

This article uses a demographic method to study the parish register of births at Raguva Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Most of these parish register records are stored in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. Some of them have been digitized and published on the website www.epaveldas.lt. The chronological sample of the study consists of the eighteenth century (1700–1800) parish register records data, which recorded 10,071 individuals born during the analysed period: 4,891 women and 5,180 men. The tasks of the research are: to determine the distribution of births by gender and class, to determine the number of children born to married or unmarried women; identify the most popular names for each class and gender by separately examining individuals baptized with two or more names. Of the 10,071 births recorded during the period in analysis, 4,891 women and 5,180 men were identified. The distribution of children born by class is as follows: peasants – 9,688 (of which 4,715 girls and 4,973 boys), nobles – 383 (of which 176 girls and 207 boys). The names of 57 peasant women and 67 peasant men were identified during the study. The names of 48 women and 46 men of the nobility were identified. The most popular Christian names of peasant women were Kotryna, Ona, Dorotėja, Marijona, Elžbieta, Ieva, Barbora, Apolonija, Kristina; men – Jonas, Kazimieras, Juozapas, Jurgis, Jokūbas, Motiejus, Mykolas, Simonas, Stanislovas. The most popular names of noblewomen: Ona, Marijona, Kotryna, Teresė; men – Juozapas, Mykolas, Jonas, Ignotas, Antanas, Kazimieras. 95% names of the baptized individuals were common to both classes. Analysis of the sources revealed that 434 individuals were given 2 or more names. These are 225 peasant children (104 girls and 121 boys) and 204 nobility children (85 girls and 119 boys). Most actively two and more names were given in 1781–1800. Two names are common to both nobles and peasants; three names – more common among nobility. After analysis of the problem of giving a Christian name it can be concluded that only in 10% of cases the choice of a Christian name was determined by the names of godparents, 7% by parents' names and only 3% by the names of the saints of that day. Other reasons accounted for 0.1% of all naming cases. In as many as 80% of all cases the reasons for choosing the names have not been identified. After examining the data on the number of illegitimate children it was concluded, that in 1700 to 1800, 113 illegitimate children were registered in Raguva: 108 peasant children (50 girls and 58 boys) and 5 nobility children (2 girls, 3 boys). Most illegitimate children were born between 1761 and 1800.