Gdyczyna

Abstract

Today the name Gdyczyna denotes a part of the village Siedliska near Brzozów in the Podkarpackie Province. It was interpreted by J. Rieger as a possessive name coming from the personal name associated with the anthroponym Gedko derived by W. Taszycki from *Gъdъ(-a) for whose meaning the author searched in the Lithuanian gùdas `inhabitant of the woods'. The anthroponym *Gdycz or *Gdyca might be the basis for the studied toponym, which would assume a Ukrainian character (Polish has *Gdzic(z), *Gdzica). However, in the light of the closes toponymic map, the name of the village Gdyczyna should have a Polish origin. The basis for the studied toponym could be the Polish form *Gdyka with the suffix -yka (cf. grdyka, władyka) connected with some basis having the above-mentioned root Gd- or − which is more probable − with the verb gdakać (`cackle').

The form of the toponym that ends in -ina allows still another interpretation, namely, as a physiographic name derived from the verb *gdykać that is a phonetic variant of the form gdakać. Such a name would characterize the river because of its noisiness caused perhaps by its rapids. The water name Ta(-o)pina with the root tap- // top-, cf. Polish topić (się), Old Russian tapati `drown' might be, for example, a formal equivalent of this hydronym, whereas a semantic and formal Ukrainian one could be Bołwin(a) from bołhaty > bowkaty (Polish bełgotać // bełkotać `murmur'); both of them are today reiterated in the names of places from the same region: Tapin near Jarosław and Bełwin near Przemyśl.