Basing on a wide spectrum of ethnographic and linguistic sources the author expresses interrelation between traditions of using towels and their naming by Russian country population of the Altai at the second part of XX - the beginning of XXIst centuries. Towel names using in the language of Russian country settlers in the second half of the XXth century, now fall into disuse replacing by literal term #towel' not only owing to language development, but as a result of reduction of decorative and ritual functions.