# village Nagykarácsony



## ilocas2

Hello, I read time tables of Hungarian railways and I stumbled upon a toponym Nagykarácsony. If I'm not mistaken karácsony means Christmas in Hungarian and nagy is big. So the name of this village means "Big Christmas". Is it true? What is the etymology of this name? Thank you


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## Zsanna

Hello,
According to wikipedia (only the Hungarian site seems to be detailed enough), the name comes from Karácsonyszállás (more or less: Christmas settling) because the population around this area consisted mainly of sheperds who "settled down" (= herded their animals back from the countryside) at Christmas time and they met there and celebrated together.
Originally there were several settlements around and when people turned into farmers, the new settlement they "created" got this name.

Apparently, before Christmas, special Christmas cards (with stamping from the Post Office) can be sent from here and wiki claims that it is known throughout the country.
Well, I have heard about this for the first time...

P.S. The "etimology" of the name is as you guessed but I suppose _nagy_ (big) here indicates that once the settlement was created (in the 1950s), it was merged from several smaller ones, so this is how it became "big".


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