The main purpose of this article is to present how geographical names (microtoponyms) acquire slang names. The site of inquiry is the area of Wręczyca Wielka, which contains the names of different physiographic objects, e. g. fields, meadows, forests, paths. The data was collected from 2011 to 2015 during the informal utterances of the oldest and middle generations of the inhabitants of the area. The analysis also contains the justifications for the microtoponyms. The linguistic material was collected in the area near Kłobuck in the north of the Silesian Province. The first part of this article is devoted to the main transformation of the Polish rural areas after 1945. The latter parts of the text present e.g. the fact that microtoponyms sustain phonetic slang features which do not exist in contemporary slang, and the fact that geographical names are one of the elements of folk culture, as well as the link between the former and contemporary folk image.

Connection of etymology and dialect lexicography is bilateral: progress of etymological investigations leads to the analysis of dialectal vocabulary, and composition of the dictionary of many / all dialects of some language requires standardization of initial records. Standardization presupposes removal of specific dialectal structural / phonetic modifications and consideration of the history of language. So, the attraction to etymological analysis of dialect words is useful and even inevitable. The author offers possible solutions of these methodological problems.

The text is an overview of the first volume of the lexical atlas of the Russian folk dialects. It presents modern cartographic methods used in the volume and types of maps contained therein. In order to better present the volume, one exemplary map is analysed, indicating its advantages and drawbacks. In conclusion the richness of the Russian dialectal lexical material, which was precisely geographically located, is stressed. This is the biggest merit of the atlas.