Abstract: The subject of the study is the toponymy of the Ryazan district of the Ryazan region, which belongs to one of the concentration zones of the Old Russian toponymy of the region. The purpose of the study is a comprehensive survey of the toponymic landscape of the Ryazan villages of Dyadkovo – Vyshgorod with the identification of the most ancient layer of local names, their linguistic and chronological attribution. The sources of the material are Russian chronicles, scribal books, historical and modern topographic maps, as well as data from the author's toponymic expedition of 2021. In the analysis of the material, etymological, structural-semantic, formant, areal methods, the method of comparing linguistic, archaeological, geographical and historical data are used. The novelty of the research lies in the collection and systematization of the modern toponymy of the studied area, a comprehensive description of the Old Russian group of toponyms, identification of links with the territories of earlier Slavic settlement. It is established that the toponymy of this area does not reveal traces of a toponymic substrate, which indicates that the territory was fully developed in the past by the ancient Russian population.
The etymology of the names is related to the traditional Slavic geographical terminology (city ‘fortified settlement’, Vyshegorod ‘fortified settlement on a hill’ or ‘city laid upstream from another city’, bystrets ‘small river with a fast current’, raka ‘river with a narrow channel and high steep banks'), Slavic terms kinship or Old Russian namesake (uncle "father's or mother's brother", personal name Uncle). The existing etymologies of names that go back to geographical terms are confirmed by the geographical realities of the area. The appellatives of Ryazan toponyms reveal areal connections with the territories of the basins of the Dnieper, Dniester, Desna, the Carpathian zone, and toponyms – with the Kiev toponymy.
The study confirms the importance of conducting toponymic expeditions in the comprehensive study of the toponymic landscape of local territories, even taking into account temporary changes in relief, fauna and hydrographic network.
The results of the study are of interest for historical lexicography, regional and interregional toponymy, toponymic cartography.

Abstract: In her article Gordova offers to create a catalogue of proper names that are used in a particular region. The process of creating such a catalogue directly relates to structuring of onomastic material and principles of its sorting in the list. The subject of the research is the regional catalogue of toponyms, its contents and structure. The author also gives a review of the most demanded catalogues of proper names, defines the main criteria of the toponymic catalogue, sources, principles of the material handling, set of conventional signs, and research potential. The study is based on the analysis of the list of toponyms that are used in the Ryazan Region and include geographical names of different time periods and categories. Gordova describes the methodology for creating a special onomastic list as a result of collecting, processing, and systematization of proper names taken from different types of sources or during field researches. The scientific novelty of the research is caused by the fact that Gordova develops a structure of the catalogue. Toponyms are given in the form of a structured list, in the geographical order, with the location of placenames and microtoponyms with reference to hyndronyms and indexes of a relevant hydronym, in the order of presenting the material from the outfall to the source, and accompanied with the determination of distinct corpuses of proper names within the basins of rivers of this or that region. The method offered by the author may be applied to the analysis of toponymy of any region of Russia that has a developed river system. 

Abstract: The subject of the article is the sources of the regional onomastics that study the creation, functioning and development of the proper names system in particular territories. Gordova describes the main kind of sources of the regional onomastics and the degree of their information capacity, names documents that contain better data on toponymy and anthroponymy of different Russian regions (cadastres, land registers, birchbark manuscripts, statistical compilations, geographical maps, and metrics). The sources are analyzed from the point of view of their chronological order from the written artifacts of the Ancient Rus to today's printed and field materials. To analyze documents of different kinds, Gordova has applied the method of textual analysis that allows to define onomastic texts (i.e. the texts in which proper names prevail). The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that Gordova analyzes and summarizes information about the sources that are used by researchers coming from different Russian regions. Noteworthy that the author defines sources that are general for the most of the regions (for example, cadastres of the XVIth century, statistical compilations of the XIXth century, topographic maps, field compilations) and sources that are specific for each individual region (for example, the Polish Camp documents are specific for Smolensk, and Korniliev drawing for Siberia). The author underlines that it is important to include proper names from different sources in specialized onomastic catalogues. This will allow to develop a valid source base of regional researches. 

Abstract: The subject of the research is the personal names inscribed on everyday items discovered in the Ryazan land. A number of everyday items with inscriptions containing forenames on them have been excavated in the territory of the ancient Duchy of Ryazan. The names, such as Erem[a], Molodilo, Dobrilo and Bogunka, are inscribed on a fishing plummet, a spindle whorl and a large earthenware wine pot; all of the above are dating back to the 9th-10th, 12th-13th century. The antique signs help us discover composition of the names of those who are of humble origin as well as usage peculiarities of those names serving as a signature on everyday items. Despite obvious scientific value, inscriptions containing forenames found on excavated household items, toys and other everyday objects are still left out-of-sight of linguists and the aforesaid archeological discoveries have not been duly studied by onomatologists as sources of anthroponyms. In her research Gordova has used the structural and typological analysis methods. Anthroponyms are analyzed from the point of view of their regional (i.e. belonging to one region) and onomastic attribution (i.e. belonging to one onomastic class and field of anthroponyms, in particular, Old Russian names of people living in the ancient Duchy of Ryazan). The epigraphical findings confirm the fact that a forename played a defining role during the Old Russian period. Even before the Mongol conquest both native Russian and Christian names existed among the non-princely estates. The use of folk forms of forenames as inscriptions bears witness of the lack of such an anthroponymical quality as formulaicity. The presented items prove the fact that everyday objects, alongside with birchbark manuscripts and chronicles, can serve as an important source of the Old Russian anthroponyms.