The article examines urbanonyms, i.e., the names of urban loci, such as streets and squares, communication routes, and social facilities like shops, car service points, monuments, dry cleaners, hairdressers, beauty salons, laundries, etc. Modern cities, especially megacities, are loci of intensive intercultural and interlingual contacts, leading to changes in various spheres of life. However, the tendency to change is always opposed by a tendency aimed at maintaining stability, allowing society and its individual groups, including urban residents, to preserve culture and traditions, which implies the preservation of cultural memory and identity. In modern humanitarian studies, one of the relevant topics is the formation and consolidation of cultural and historical memory. Both verbal and non-verbal means are closely involved in this process. Urbanonyms combine several functional characteristics: they serve as a means of naming individual objects, distinguishing them from similar ones, and influencing recipients as well as customers. Their significant feature is the integration of naming traditions with trends indicative of social and cultural changes. The purpose of the authors of the article is to explore the socio-cultural characteristics of urbanonyms as a means of constructing the phenomenon of «urban identity,» on the one hand, and as evidence of intensifying intercultural and interlingual contacts, on the other hand. The dynamics of urbanonyms are analyzed as a regular aspect of their existence, particularly in contemporary metropolitan areas.
toponyms; urbanonyms – their sociocultural features; urban landscape; urban identity; historical memory; unofficial vs official urbanonyms; migration; urbanonyms in metropolitan areas.