The study is devoted to the comparative analysis of semantic features and internal form of phraseological units (PUs) with anthroponymic component in German and Russian. The scientific novelty of the research is based on the analysis of phraseological units of two different, genetically distant languages with the use of a single research approach. As a result of the analysis of German and Russian PUs with anthroponymic component, there were distinguished 317 PUs of the German language and 278 PUs of the Russian by the method of continuous sampling. All PUs were classified into three groups by the origin of the used proper noun: 1) PUs with an anthroponym, denoting a real historical person (Germ. 18%; Rus. 17%); 2) PUs, including personal names from literature and Scripture (Germ. 44%; Rus. 49%); 3) PUs with traditional male and female names (Germ. 38%; Rus. 34%). The analysis of the motivation of an anthroponym in PU's structure allowed to distinguish the following groups and subgroups: 1. According to the degree of retaining anthroponym's semantic completeness: a) retaining semantic individuality of anthroponym; b) semantic reduction and partial change of anthroponym meaning; c) loss of anthroponym meaning. 2. According to the ability of anthroponyms to be engaged in the process of phraseology (phraseologization), three degrees of phraseological abstraction were distinguished: maximum, intermediate and minimal. The undertaken research allows to come to a conclusion about the connection between motivation and internal form of PU with linguistic and cultural information contained in phraseological systems of the compared languages.
