Literary proper names (poetonyms) are universal functional-semantic word signs intended for individualizing and characterizing single objects of artistic reality in the space of literary texts. The semantic-stylistic potential of onomastic units within a literary text is enormous, making them both a significant means of interpretation and an important constructive element of a literary text involved in the processes of text production and meaning-making. Poetonyms become an essential means of text construction, possessing a great functional potential, due to the pragmastilistic semantic components. Their existence is not always recognized, but an analysis of the general properties of proper names and a linguistic analysis of the onomastic space of different literary texts prove the legitimacy of the hypothesis that poetonyms can act as key (dominant) text units.