On Prepositional-Case Constructions in Urban Micro-toponymy / Ergonymy: Russian Names of the (“)U / u N(”)-type

This paper discusses Russian prepositional-case constructions “U NGen” (‘At N’sGen’, e.g., U Palycha ‘At Palych’s’) with ‘guest’ semantics in ergonymy and microurbanonymy. It also looks at when such onym forms emerged in the Russian language. While they were still in everyday use in the mid-20th century, they became more firmly established in the official ergonymicon in the 1990s. The author suggests that these names are rooted in everyday Russian discourse, where the name of the (symbolic) owner of an establishment was metonymically used to refer to the establishment itself (e.g., “to visit Ν”, “to dine at Ν’s”). At the same time, these names are influenced by European onomastic traditions, such as German “Zum N”, French “Chez N”, and Czech “U N”. The article also explores the syntactic variation in their common usage, particularly the oblique cases where the generic term for the establishment (e.g., café, hotel, shop) is missing. The author draws parallels from other onomastic categories, such as ideonyms. The written form of these names is another key issue, especially considering the use of quotation marks and capitalization, which reflect ongoing debates about what constitutes a proper name. The article includes examples from field recordings and interviewer comments, as well as lexicographical descriptions based on fieldwork data. It also examines to what extent the “У NGen” (‘At N’sGen’) model can be seen as a standard form for unofficial names. The author suggests that this pattern may have been developed by researchers or respondents as an invariant form, influenced by knowledge of precedent texts from literature and contemporary official onomastics.