The article consideres the problem of forming the meta-language of literary onomastics. It is shown that today the methodological principles of this naming section are completely unspecified. Meta-language of literary onomastics is based on terms of general onomastics. The term “literary onomastics” is not established, and some linguists use combinations such as poetic onomastics, stylistic onomastics, onomapoetics , literary-artistic onomastics. Special attention is required to study the function of proper names, distinction of the integral system of functions of proper names, realized within an artistic text. In the literary texts the function of proper names (to nominate, to identify) begins to perform another - stylistic, in particular: informational stylistic and emotional stylistic. This may become a fact of speech, if it overflows the text and is used in the speech as a common name. Proper names, the meanings of which coexist with general or individual connotations, are called connotative proper names (Ye. Otin’s term “connotonyms”). A number of functions performed by poetonyms (poetic proper names) is nominative, chronotypical, characterizing, expressive, text-creative and figurative. But the problem of poetonyms classification and their functions in the literary texts is still actual.