Türkiye Naming Customs
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Understanding customs used in surnames and given names can help you identify your ancestors in records. Learn to recognize name variations and see clues in names. |
Online Tools
- Behind the Name: Turkish Surnames
- Behind the Name: Turkish Given Names
- Category:Turkish masculine given names
- Category:Turkish feminine given names
- Category:Turkish unisex given names
Surnames
Naming Customs
- Until the twentieth century, most Turks had no surnames. They followed the Islamic custom of using one name, given at birth, relying on a patronymic or a word indicating some special attribute for more precise identification. In most registers only given names and patronymic are given. In 1934, an edict was issued requiring all Turks to take family names.[1]
- Family names have been used in Turkey since the 1930s. Before this, the traditional
practice was for wives and children to take their husband’s/father’s personal name as a last name. This is still used by many of the population of northern Cyprus (see section 14.7.c).
- A family name ending in –OĞLU is Turkish. The –OĞLU ending is sometimes written separately from the preceding part of the family name, but both parts are needed to record the correct family name. For example:
- SARCOĞLU or SARC OĞLU
- SULEYMANOĞLU or SULEYMAN OĞLU
For Further Reading
FamilySearch Library
Additional sources are listed in the FamilySearch Catalog:
References
- ↑ The Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Family History Record Profile: Turkey,” Word document, private files of the FamilySearch Content Strategy Team, 1998.