Abstract
The article analyzes scientific approaches to the grouping of toponyms according to the geographical principles based on the materials of the Zhambyl region and comprehensively examines hydrographic terms. The importance of the study is due to insufficient work on the hydronymy of the Zhambyl region and the need to develop this direction in Kazakh science. The aim of the study is to group the hydronyms of the Zhambyl region based on geographical principles. The study used cartographic, statistical and GIS methods. Whilst analyzing hydrographic objects, 177 names of rivers were identified which were formed with the participation of indicator terms related to rivers. They were classified and grouped into the most common terms in the names of rivers such as the term sai 57%, the term su 25% and the term ozek 16%.