Feminative in the interwar Catholic press. A contribution to the history of feminine names in Polish

Abstract

The subject of the description in the article are female names recorded in the interwar Catholic press. The study included two volumes of three periodicals: „Rodzina Polska” (1929, 1931), „Gazeta dla Kobiet” (1933, 1935) and „Kuźniczanka” (1932, 1936). The aim of the analysis is to confront the then status of female names in environments referring to the social teaching of the Church with their valuation in contemporary public discourse, in which the affirmation of feminatives is combined with leftist or feminist views. Selected sources also search for evidence confirming or falsifying the thesis about the tendency towards masculinization in the 1930s. The material recorded a significant number of 244 different female formations. The rule is to call women holding positions in the authorities of associations and organizations female formations, e.g. prezeska, wiceprezeska, sekretarka generalna, dyrektorka etc. Male names were used sporadically to refer to women, which does not provide grounds for concluding that the practice of using male names expanded at that time. Only the scientific titles, doctor and professor, appeared only in the male variant.