| Resumo: | This contribution seeks to explore the main sources of Basque family names: patronymics, toponyms and nicknames (oikonymic, social and lexical). Family names which are possibly based on oikonymic nicknames could be explained by two competing hypotheses: a) they come from nicknames; b) they were born as a consequence of the deletion of a genitive of place. In fact, some family names likeArretxea, Etxeberria, Indartea... can only be explained by means of the deletion of a genitive of place, since, otherwise, they would not have the final -a. Lastly, this paper comments on the oikonymic nicknames formation processes: palatalization, deletion of the ending -a or -ea, deletion of the desinence -nea (with the occasional addition of a hypocoristic suffix), the use of accent shift and, finally, the combination of two processes.
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