NAMING OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN GERMANY: LEGAL FOUNDATIONS
The article presents a linguistic interpretation of the act on political parties in Federal Republic of Germany in terms of requirements to the naming of political parties. The study has found out that these requirements are reasonably liberal and the party founders are relatively free in the name choice. This act does not limit the parties in their choice of language; however, the parties are actually named in German. The act does not allow the use of full and abbreviated names of other political parties, already existing in the Federal Republic of Germany, thereby excluding homonymy and ensuring the uniqueness of each individual party name, but allows paronymic relations. The act permits to use toponyms and religious terms in the parties’ names, which reflects the federal structure of Germany and the belonging of its citizens to Christianity.