Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the process by which the Surname Law became drafted and finalized in parliament, and then disseminated through a bureaucratic network. The Surname Law had multiple audiences and was a product of the defensive nationalist political climate of the 1930s. It enforced the adoption of surnames in Turkish, and forbade “names which referred to rank and civil official status, tribes, foreign races or nationalities as well as names that are not suited to common morals and names which are disgusting and ridiculous” (Republic of Turkey. Soyadı Kanunu, No. 2525, June 21, 1934, Articles 1–3). It assigned the husband, as the chief of the marital union, the “duty and right” to choose the surname. Those who were of legal age were free to choose their own surname (ibid., Articles 4–5). The law became effective in January 1935 and gave citizens two years to choose and register surnames. By January 1935, two other important laws on names were to be enforced: the Law on Appellations and Titles and the law bestowing the surname Atatürk to Mustafa Kemal.
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Notes
- 1.
Republic of Turkey. Law No. 2590. Efendi, bey, paşa, gibi lakab ve ünvanların kaldırıldığına dair kanun Law title translation from Lewis (1999, 113).
- 2.
Republic of Turkey, Law 2587, 24.11.1934 Kemal öz adlı Türkiye Cumhur reisinine verilen “Atatürk” adının veya bunun başına veya sonuna söz konarak yapılan adların hiç bir kimse tarafından alınamıyacağını buyuran kanun.
- 3.
“The Swiss Code was framed in 1912, and stemmed from Germanic civil law. The latter had been codified in 1874–1896 contemporaneously with the codification of the Mecelle, and served as the basis for the framing of the Japanese Civil Code antedating that in Turkey, and the Chinese Code postdating the Turkish one” (Berkes, 471). For further reading on the translation and reception of the Swiss Civil Code, see Özsu (2010) and Örücü (2013).
- 4.
Madde 259—Nesebi sahih olan çocuk, babasının ismini taşır ve onun vatandaşlık haklarına malik olur. (Article 259: The legal child carries the father’s name and is entitled to his citizenship rights.)
- 5.
This clause has since been changed and women may carry their own surnames when they are married. In 1997, women gained the right to keep their prenuptial surnames along with their husband’s surnames if they so choose. According to a Sept 30, 2015 ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeals, a woman may use her own maiden name as her surname, but still needs to file a lawsuit to use this right. This is because the Civil Registration Office is not bound by precedent cases and women must wait until Article 187 of the Civil Code, which stipulates that women use their husband's surname, be changed. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ruling-allows-turkish-women-to-keep-maiden-name-after-marrying.aspx?pageID=238&nID=95698&NewsCatID=341
- 6.
For more on the changing of place names in Republican Turkey, see Öktem (2008).
- 7.
Translation by author.
- 8.
The school as an institution where the child assumes or is given a new name for his skills is not unusual. Note that the young Mustafa was given the name Kemal by his teacher. Name-giving by teachers was very prevalent at the beginning of mass immigration after the foundation of Israel. “Often the names were given by teachers when registering the pupils on the first day of school. Rivka Guber, one of the most famous of the teachers at the time of the mass immigration after the foundation of Israel relates how she changed Persian Fairuz into Hebrew Yitskhaq” (Stahl 1994, 280).
- 9.
Law No 2576, Accepted 5.7.1934, published in the official gazette, 15.7.1934.
- 10.
In a different, but parallel case, when the “nom de baptème” was switched to “prenom” in France during the secularization of the population registries, it took population officials or municipal officers a long time to adjust to this change (Lefebvre-Teillard 1990, 57).
- 11.
1—İsmin himayesi.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
In subsequent years, this would be made into an issue by intellectuals on the right, such as Ziyaeddin Fındıkoğlu (1939), as I will cover in Chap. 5.
- 15.
For further reading on revolutionary names in France, see Billy (2000).
- 16.
Duben and Behar note that the use of familya, of Italian origin (famiglia), became commonplace for Muslims in the late nineteenth century (Duben and Behar 1991, 211).
- 17.
- 18.
Among the reasons for the “large scale deportations of Kurds.”
- 19.
“Bu gibilerin eski halklarını hatırlatacak isimlerle anılması, büyük bir suç sayılmalıdır.Yüzyıllardan beri Türklüğe karışan insanlara ve hattâ kitlelere; Laz, Çerkes, Acem, Arnavut, Arap, Boşnak, Tatar ve Kürt diye seslenilmesi, Türklük için fenâ, leke ve müthiş bir cinâyettir. Ne yazık ki, milletimiz, hükûmetimiz, polisimiz ve hattâ mahkemelerimiz, hâlâ korkunç bir kayıtsızlıkla, bu cinâyeti işlemekte ve karşılarına çıkan Türklere yabancılık aşılamaktadır.
- 20.
Republic of Turkey. Law No. 2590, 26.11.1934. Efendi, bey, paşa, gibi lakab ve ünvanların kaldırıldığına dair kanun Law title translation from Lewis (1999, 113).
- 21.
See Chehabi, H.E.’s study on “The Reform of Iranian Nomenclature and Titulature in the Fifth Majles,” in Wali Ahmadi, ed. Converging Zones: Persian Literary Tradition and the Writing of History. Studies in Honor of Amin Banami. 84–116. (Costa Mesa: Mazda, 2012).
- 22.
“Orta çağda Devlet rejimleri değişti, bununla beraber halkçılık mefhumu da eski saflığını ve temizliğini kaybetti. İnsanlar arasında esasını kâh dinden, kâh tegallüp, tasallut hırslarından alan hâsıl oldu. Bu suretler mümtaz sınıflar meydana çıktı. Her bir sınıf kendine ve nesline hâyali sıfatlar ve lâkaplar izafesine başladı. Türkler kurunu vustaî cemiyetlerle temasları sırasında bu tesirlerden kurtulamadı…Bu gün hiç bir ferdin lâkabına güvenerek payesine güvenerek ve sığınarak hiç kimseden fazla ve üstün hakkı yoktur. Yoksa da eski devirlerin arta kalan bu lâkaplar ve tabirler kullanılmakla ulusal üyeler arasında eski sınıf ve tefevvuk hatıralarını uyandırmakta, milletin asil ruhunu incitmektedir” (TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi Devre 4, Içtima: 4, 26.10.1934, 42).
- 23.
For example, the title used for Suleiman I in 1562, at the peak of Ottoman expansion was as follows: “The Padishah and Sultan of the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, of Ka’aba the Esteemed, and Medina the Illuminated, of Jerusalem the Sacred, of the Throne of Egypt the most precious jewel of our era, of the provinces of Yemen and Aden and San’a, of Baghdad the Abode of Peace, and Basra, and Lahsa, of the cities of Anushirwan (i.e., the Sasanid Ctesiphon in Iraq), of the lands of Algiers and Azerbaijan, of the land of the Golden Horde and the land of Tartary, of Diyarbekir and Kurdistan and Luristan, and all of Rumelia and Anatolia and Karamania and Wallachia and Moldavia and Hungary, and apart from these, other great and esteemed countries and lands” (Schaendlinger, I: xxv, cited in Bayerle 1997, 47).
- 24.
See article by Vercihan Ziflioğlu, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=ataturks-signature-modelled-by-an-armenian-in-one-night-2010-10-27.
- 25.
“Soy adı kanununa uyarak bundan sonra ad ve imzamı aşağıdaki gibi kullanacağımı bildirir ve saygılarımı sunarım, Efendim” (Başbakanlık Cumhuriyet Arşivi 490.01.41.173.5).
- 26.
Sayın Bay. 4.12.1934 gününden beri Sagay adını soyadı olarak aldığımı yüksek katınıza derin saygılarımla sunarım sayın Bay. Bursa Mebusu Esat Sagay.
- 27.
Reşad (Atabek) (b.1911 in Salonica) graduated from Istanbul Law School and received a doctorate from the Geneva Law School in 1934. Other than his thesis comparing names in Swiss and Turkish laws, he also published on insurance law, insurance credits, and translated law books into Turkish.
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Türköz, M. (2018). Making, Disseminating, and Enforcing the Law. In: Naming and Nation-building in Turkey. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56656-0_3
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