The article presents three layers of geographic names in the light of etymology. The oldest layer is substrate, pre-Slavic; the boroadest and most fragmented is the autochtonous Slovene layer; the third is adstrate and superstrate, and includes names motivated by neighbouring languages of the languages of later immigrants. The focus of the paper is on the autochtonous layer, which is partly illuminated from a name-forming point of view. All the layers and their sub-groups are illustrated by examples.
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