Antonomasia

Antonomasia is a variety of metonymy consisting in the use of a proper name as a common one or, conversely, of a common name instead of a proper one. In the first case the name of a well-known historical or literary personage becomes a generalised designation of a type: "a don Juan," "a maecenas," "a hercules." In the second, a person is named by their characteristic feature or title: "the Great Stonemason" instead of "Ivan Franko." Antonomasia rests on the cultural recognisability of the name-symbol, which concentrates in itself a fixed complex of qualities. It is closely linked to periphrasis and allegory and serves as a means of terse, evaluatively coloured characterisation. Antonomasia is widely represented in journalism, satire and literature, and the transition of proper names into common ones is an important subject of lexicology.