FROM “FALCON” TO “VORSKLA”: THE NAMES OF FOOTBALL TEAMS OF POLTAVA REGION IN THE XX–XXI CENTURIES

Abstract

The article presents the names of the football teams of the Poltava region for the entire period of football development in these areas during the 20th–21st centuries. The subject of the analysis is the motivational base and ways of creating the names of the clubs of the Poltava region. The sources of factual material are Ukrainian sports periodicals and the works of sports historians on the development of football in the Poltava region. At the beginning of the 20th century the names of the teams are motivated by onims – the names of Poltava districts and educational institutions where football teams were created (Podil, Second Poltava Men's Gymnasium), and the nomination of the Sokil gymnastics society, whose branches were in Poltava and Kremenchuk. In the 1920s and 1980s, team names reflected Soviet realities and were duplicated by onyms – names of physical culture and sports associations, enterprises and institutions (Avanhard, Energy, VATU), and nicknames – names of persons by profession, field of activity, nominations of enterprise products, Soviet symbols and ideological names (collective farmer, engine, red flag, Bilshovyk). This testifies to the influence of totalitarian factors on the choice of football names. Only a small part of the nominations of the teams of that time was motivated by lexemes with ethnocultural semantics (Poltava, Vorskla, Dnipro). After the restoration of Ukrainian independence, the percentage of teams that chose to name tokens with a national-cultural component in meaning (Ukraine, Poltava region, Lubny, Sula) increased, which is a manifestation of the influence of national trends on the selection of names for football teams. Many teams still retain the homonymous names of Soviet sports associations and nominations formed from the names of people by profession and occupation (Kolos, machine builder). The consequence of the influence of the commercial factor on the naming of football clubs is an increase in the number of nominations that come from ergonims – the names of the sponsors of these teams (Velta, Mineralnі Vody). Composite nominations were created, in which the name of the commercial structure financing the team (Avtomobilist-Nord, Vorskla-Naftohaz) was added to the old name of the club. The naming of football teams of Poltava region over more than a century of football development in these areas was influenced by various factors – national, totalitarian and commercial, the mixing of which was recorded at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries.