Abstract

One of the most popular Estonian male first names, Jüri, is derived from the name of the Christian martyr Saint George, immortalised in the legend of Saint George and the Dragon as the warrior who rescues a princess by defeating a dragon. The oldest known written attestation of this legend is found in a Georgian 11th century manuscript, the contents of which is retold in the paper. The paper also gives an account of the spread of the personal name Jüri. It is demonstrated that Jüri was among the most popular Estonian male first names in the district of Pärnu already in the 1630s. Numerous family names have been formed from Jüri by adding a derivational suffix or combining Jüri with another word into a compound name. In addition, the element Jüri occurs in compound place names all over Estonia, especially in farm names. The main part of the paper examines common nouns in Standard Estonian and Estonian dialects formed on the basis of Jüri, some of which are related to St. George's name day on April 23, called jüripäev in the Estonian folk calendar. The significance of this day is accentuated by the fact that the month of April is referred to as jürikuu, literally 'the month of Jüri'. There are also several names of plants, fishes and birds that have been formed on the basis of jüri. A separate conceptual group is formed by numerous compound words that characterise a person in terms of professional occupation or individual peculiarity, like tindijüri, 'office worker', literally 'ink-Jüri', or pudrujüri 'a person talking unclearly', lit. 'porridge-Jüri'.