The topic of the essay is analysis of place names with toponymic derivatives, which occur as early as in our first written records. That is the reason why the exact time of when this name type could have developed cannot be determined. On the other hand, it can be stated that the development of place names through derivation was already widespread in the early Old Hungarian period. Although there are relevant examples from the later periods, from the late Old Hungarian period the proportion of the compound names was on the increase.
Toponymic derivatives had several shades of meaning in Hungarian, and they could originally be found in other functions (as formants of personal names and of collective nouns, adjective-forming suffixes meaning ‘having the feature of, supplied with’). Since such words were especially suitable for marking places, they gradually developed meanings referring to locations. Since then, they have been widely used to build new lexemes including proper names, and place names, irrespective of their original functions.
The origin of our topoformants that consist of just a single consonant or a vowel like -s, -d, -gy, -i, -j, -n, or -ó/-ő can be traced back to the Uralic (Finno-Ugric). proto-language. Some (not many) of our suffixes, such as -sd and -nd, are outcomes of intralinguistic development from the -s + -d, and -n + -d combinations. The -ka/-ke and -ság/-ség suffixes are exceptions because these appeared relatively late (15–16th century), besides, in the spreading of the -ka/-ke some external influences from the Slavic languages can also be pointed out.
The topoformant -d, most frequently used and widespread in place names, can also be found in hydronyms and microtoponyms (just like -gy, although its productivity discontinued early). However, the suffixes –i and –j first appeared only in place names, and -ság/-ség came to be used for the derivation of names of regions.
The study touches upon the connection between the topoformants of the early Old Hungarian period and some types of different place names. For instance, suffixes rarely appear in patrocinium-type name-giving. Toponyms from tribes names appear rarely or are secondary. However, toponym derivation has an important role in the creation of other place names (for example in those formed from anthroponyms and ethnonyms).