Verso un Dizionario-Atlante dei Soprannomi Etnici in Sicilia (DASES)

A branch of anthroponymy that was very much in vogue in the beginning of the 20th century and that, apart from some important examples, was practically abandoned in recent years, is the blasone popolare or, as Bruno Migliorini puts it, the soprannome etnico. Hereby, the present authors argue in favour of an atlas-dictionary project which could provide the necessary geolinguistic data. Such a project should analyse all available material from a folkloristic, perceptive, and sociological perspective and take into consideration the onymic creativity shared by neighbouring places. In this paper the said project is presented from a methodological point of view and bearing in mind the possible future positive results of the data in question. In the concluding part, the authors refer to some case studies which provide examples of the anthroponymic dynamics of contact among microblasoni, individual nicknames, surnames and soprannomi etnici in Sicily.