O motywach religijnych w etymologiach ludowych polskich nazw miejscowości

The aim of the article is to show the general mechanisms of functioning religious motives within folk etymology (morphological reinterpretation) that concerns Polish names of the places. They refer to the Catholic religion and the knowledge and image of heathen beliefs. The article proves that the religious motivation displays in folk etymologies of Polish names of the places in two ways: 1) by selecting a basic noun (or one of the basic nouns) for a particular name of the place a common noun connected with a belief or a religion, or a proper noun which appears in religious writings, next the justification of the legitimacy of the selection, as in the etymologies of the folk names Myszyniec (according to a folk etymology created from a noun misja (a mission)) and Swarożyn (from the word Swaróg), 2) by the justification of the legitimacy of the selection for a basic noun a particular local name of the word which belongs to another semantic field of a religious character as in the folk etymologies of names Częstochowa (‘a city which often hides from pilgrims’ or ‘a city famous for the picture of Virgin Mary, which is often hidden behind another picture and is shown on special occasions’) and Kurzętnik (a place in which there was a lot of fire in heathen times).