Armenian Name and Surname Changes

Vahe H. Apelian

Inscription in the back of the photograph attached below.

It is the this inscription from the back of the photograph included in the text below and also personal situations I have encountered prompted me to speculate as to why and how many Western Armenian names and surnames have changed. I will come to the picture and the inscription shortly.

Many years ago, during our son’s baseball game, someone approached me and asked me if I am Armenian. Naturally, I replied in the affirmative. He said he too is of Armenian descent and that his last name is Kerian. The way he pronounced his surname sounded to me more Irish than Armenian and reminded me of the time when I, doing fundraising mailing for NJ Home For The Armenian Aged. I received a returned mailing with a note asking: “Why do I continue on getting such mailings? I am Irish!” The person’s surname was Kilian!

But Kerian surname had an interesting twist to it. He said his grandfather was Shishanian and that he became Kerian. Immediately it occurred to me as to what must have surely transpired. His grandfather, being a staunch Armenian, had changed his family name from being Turkish in origin, “shishmam”, which means fat, to its authentic Armenian word “ker”, meaning the same. Over the years the sounding had changed obliterating its Armenian connotation to one that sounded more like Irish. In Armenian it would have sounded Kehrian։

The U.S. provides a unique opportunity for immigrants to change the family name during their naturalization process. I know of another Armenian family who changed its surname from Kharmandarian to Galian. “Gal” refers to the roundabout threshing floor, on which wheat is trashed, which is what the Turkish derived surname indicated. Of course, there are instances when families changed their Armenian surnames to Western   family names, severing all ties with the surname’s origin.   But often they attempt to keep the original meaning such as “Banker” for “Sarafian”, which in Turkish means money exchanger. 

I know that some  also deliberately changed their surname because the family simply took the surname of another Armenian family for a variety of reasons. One of our relatives, who was a Syrian national, took the family name of a Lebanese Armenian person  his age who had repatriated to Armenia. He immigrated to the U.S. with his new assumed name and used it henceforth. Natually his children carry the surname.

But most of the Armenian name changes probably came about at the whims of the Ottoman or Arab registering officer without the family’s consent but with the family tacitly accepting the change.  Even siblings of the same parents at time end having different surnames with some being registered as Apelian and others as Bedirian. Surely their parents would not have wanted to have different surnames for their children. 

Names and surnames were also changed because of transliteration from Ottoman or Arabic script to Latin script.

 For example, my wife’s family name is Hovsepian. But her paternal side of the family was Altemarmakian. Her father was born in Ereyli in Turkey in 1915. The family moved to Lattakia Syria in the early 1920s. My father-in-law claimed that the Syrian registering officer registered them after their deceased father’s name Hovsep and the family members accepted it without much thought that by doing so they severed their legal claim to the properties they owned and left behind. See:  http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2017/08/righteous-turks-from-erayli.html

Transliteration from Ottoman and Arabic scripts played havoc on the names as well. Hovsepian is a difficult sounding name in Arabic.   Therefore the transliteration of their name into Latin became either Hosepian or Housepian with some family members having their surname spelled with the former and some as the latter. 

My deceased paternal’s uncle's name is Joseph, a difficult name to write in Arabic script and sound it in Arabic. However it was written, it was transliterated as Zouzef, which is the way my cousin spelled his deceased father’s name in official documents. As to my first name, V sound does not exist in the Arabic alphabet, fortunately it does in Latin, otherwise my name would have transliterated from Arabic, into God knows what in Latin characters. When I graduated from the American University of Beirut I adopted my father’s name, Hovhannes, as my middle name on my diploma out of deference to my father who barely had a few years elementary schooling in Keurkune. In the U.S. when I applied for his immigration I found out that his name in his passport is spelled Ohannes, a common variation of the name and more in tune with its sounding in Arabic. After he came to the U.S. he adopted the name John socially! My deference to his Armenian name thus went out of the window!

Mr. and Mrs. Assadour Apelian-Beirian

The picture I referenced earlier and posted above depicts a young married couple in their wedding attire. They were married in Keurkune, Kessab and sent their photograph in their wedding attire to their relatives, including my parents. The following is noted in the back of the picture (see above): “ Shnorhavor Nor Dari Yev Sourp Tznount” meaning “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”. The date is December 12, 1959, and they have signed it as by Mr. and Mirs. Assadour Apelian. But Assadour and his family’s official surname is Bedirian!.

This young hadsome groom and beautiful bride were married with the groom’s accepted family name Apelian while the family had been registered as Bedirian all along in all likelihood after Bedir one of the most prominent members of the Apelian family. It would not surprise me that the registering officer registered the family after their prominent patriarch without the family being aware of it or making much of an issue or understanding its implication given the times. Assadour’s younger brother Kourken has told me that he first got his Syrian identification card in preparation of his going to Beirut to continue his secondary education. He was surprised to see that his family name was spelled Bedirian when throughout his schooling in Kessab he had used Apelian as his family surname because that’s how the family was known. Kourken henceforth continued his education in AUB and then in Canada and graduate with a Ph.D. as Bedirian.

The following instance of name change remains in a class of its own. When Missak Apelian had his Arabic scripted Syrian identification card issued for the first time to leave the Kessab, Syira and come to Anja, Lebanon to continue his high school education, it naturally had his surname spelled Bedirian because that is how his family name had also been registered. But the surname sounded odd to him and did not sit well with him as he had not used that surname before, even as a student in Kessab school, so he doctored it and had it read Apelian, the surname he had always used. He graduated high school in Anjar, then Haigazian College and later came to the U.S. after having his Syrian passport issued based on his Syrian identification card he had altered and after a few decades of an illustrious career with Northrop Grumman Corp, he retired as an Apelian. I asked him once, how did he dare to do so such a thing. Apparently I did not phrase my inquiry properly to convey my astonishment. His reply literary was: “easy, with a few strokes of the pen!” That was in the good old days before the digital age.

As to my immediate family and also for most in the greater family, for the past 10 generations, our forbearers retained our family’s surname. It is named after the founding patriarch of the family, Apel.