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This paper analyses names for ‘violin’ in Bulgarian, examined against a Slavonic background. A broader approach has been taken to these names, because the article concerns not only the “classic” violin, but also the folk instruments (fiddles), which have different names in Bulgarian (and other Slavonic languages): цигулка, гъдулка, гусла, кемане, лаута, виолина, гънилка, виулица. These names are described from the semantic, derivational and etymological point of view. The noun цигулка, the basic name of ‘violin’, occurs only in Bulgarian and it is unknown in other Slavonic languages, although there are documented derivatives in SerboCroatian. The noun кемане ‘violin’, from Turkish, also occurs in Macedonian and SerboCroatian and other languages belonging to the Balkan league. The second part of the papers is devoted to the names for ‘violin’ in other Slavonic languages. Some names, extant only in some of the Slavonic languages, are derived from an onomatopoeic stem (Bulg. цигулка, Pol. skrzypce, EastSlavonic скрипка). Most of the Slavonic languages have a noun derived from gǫsli, a Common Slavic ancestor, but in some Slavonic languages (Czech, Slovak, and Sorabic) this word now means the classic violin, while in others it means ‘fiddle’ (comp. Pol. gęśle, Bulg. гусла), and in the Eastern Slavonic languages and Old Church Slavonic it means a ‘plucked string instrument’ ‘a kind of lute’. In SerboCroatian it means both the classic violin and primitive fiddle. Polabian has its own name form ‘violin’ gigléikia, which comes from German.