The ethnic connotation mark of oiconyms in Romania

The purpose of the present study is to correlate the ethnical structure of the population with toponyms designating human settlements. For that purpose, we have analysed the ethnical distribution of the population declaring its ethnical appurtenance at the national census in 2011, we have identified the names of human settlements that hint at ethnical groups’ presence and then correlated the names of those settlements with their national demographic structure.
From the point of view of the connection between the present percent of ethnical groups at the level of communes and the territorial distribution of oiconyms having ethnical connotation, we have identified a high correlation in the case of Romanians, only in part for Hungarians and no connection at all regarding Greeks, Polish, Macedonian, Jew or Turkish people; this result could only be related to a high mobility of the population, other that the majority one, added to substantial changes in the national structure of the population in the course of time.