Family trees

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Surnames were invented and forced upon people's throats in 1930's here in Turkey. Especially those with ethnicity were deliberately given surnames including "Türk" in it. But before that gentry and influential peasant families had their names. Initially their usage were banished but afterwards that was eased a little bit.

There are aristocratic families that can trace their roots back to pre-Ottoman times. But most of the time surnames are just meaningless and you can have multiple ones in a family.

My maternal grandfather, urged by my nationalist uncle, changed the whole family's surname; all the relatives, comprising the greatest clanlike family in the village, including the children and grandchildren of my grandfather's siblings, have a different one. When I need to introduce myself to someone of the region, I use their surname as reference ("We are of the XXXs"). My paternal grandmother's brethren had taken different surnames. The greater all-male-side family of my father has a different surname than our small branch, whose surname was given by Kemal himself... Even more interesting; I have a couple Danish cousins, the younger not speaking Turkish. He has double given names (Danish and Turkish) as well as double surnames to fit them (one of his late Turkish father and of his Danish mother).

Kurds have clan names which scarcely match their surnames. Aristocratic clans can trace their ancestry quite far backwards. Similar case exists for the Türkmen (Turcoman) clans; they can trace their roots back to legends.
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