Azerbaijani Personal Names

This chapter provides an introduction to the structure of Azerbaijani names as used in the present Republic of Azerbaijan, including some basic historical background, and gives some guidelines for establishing the names of Azerbaijani people in authority records.

1. The structure of Azerbaijani names

The modern pattern for a full Azerbaijani personal name consists of three major components and thus can be regarded as constituting a trinomial naming pattern:

1. first name, given by parents (e.g., Elkhan (male); Sevil′ (female));
2. middle name/patronymic ending in oğlu (sometimes written oglu or oghlu), meaning "son" for male names (e.g., Khalil oglu), or qızı (sometimes written as gizi or kyzy), meaning "daughter" for female names (e.g., Namaz gizi), with the father’s name always preceding the noun denoting filial relationship;
3. surname or family name, which can be formed with Russian suffixes (e.g., Hasanov (male); Namazova (female)) or native Azerbaijani suffixes (e.g., Vahabzadä and Osmanly (gender neutral and so appropriate for the last names of both females and males).

Note that surnames have not always been a part of Azerbaijani personal names. Before the late 19th and early 20th century, Azerbaijani personal names followed Muslim naming conventions that eschewed the use of surnames and restricted themselves to the following two elements:

1. first name, given by parents (e.g., Elkhan (male); Sevil′ (female))
2. patronymic (e.g. Khalil oglu (male); Namaz gizi (female) or Namas zada (either gender)

In this traditional binomial pattern, the patronymic served a function comparable to, though not identical with, the surname. Surnames first started to come into common use in the 1920s, in the wake of the Sovietization of Azerbaijan. From then until the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijanis tended to abandon the use of traditional binomial Azeri names and naming patterns, and to adopt instead surnames formed in accordance with Russian and other national naming patterns. Patronymics continued to form part of a person’s full name in the new trinomial pattern (e.g., Sardar Ilyas oğlu Aliyev ("Sardar Aliyev, son of Ilyas")); in some instances, they were spelled as one word and used as surnames (e.g., Ilyasoğlu; Nabiqızı).

Another effect of the Sovietization of Azerbaijan was the wide use of Russian patronymics consisting of the father’s name + ending -ovich/-evich (for males) or -ovna/evna (for females) alongside the traditional oğlu/qızı pattern. This practice was frequent before Azerbaijan gained independence in 1991, but declined sharply after that date.

In 1993, the parliament of the Republic of Azerbaijan enacted a law that gave citizens the option of changing their surnames from a russified form (i.e., one containing the patronymic suffixes -ov/-ev or -ova/-eva) to a native patronymic form (i.e., one containing patronymic particles such as -ly, -li, -liu, -zade, -oglu, and so on). In January 2010, the parliament prepared a draft of a policy regarding the de-russification of Azeri surnames, one which encouraged that all newborn children of Azeri descent in Azerbaijan be given Azeri surnames. A special commission of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences tasked with developing a morphological model for “native” Azerbaijani surnames drew upon historical forms of surnames and name-giving traditions in Azerbaijan to propose a format for using the suffixes -li, -ly, -lu, -oglu, -gil, and -soy. A list of standard surname forms has been submitted to the Azerbaijani Department of Justice for approval; however, there is no evidence that this standard has been officially enacted yet. Interestingly, it appears that many Azerbaijanis are choosing to retain the russified form of their surnames, though newborns are, as a rule, being given traditional Azerbaijani forms.

In practice, then, catalogers will find that many kinds of surnames are currently in use in Azerbaijan, including Russian-style surnames and those based on traditional Azerbaijani patronymics (including both one-word and two-word variants).

2. Creating authorized access points for persons with Azerbaijani names

Catalogers creating authority records for Azerbaijani persons are advised to keep the following points in mind:

2.1. Script

Because of various socio-political shifts over the course of the last century, several scripts have been used to write the Azerbaijani language within Azerbaijan. From 1922 until 1939, Azerbaijani was written in a Latin script including special characters. From 1939 until 1991, the peak years of Sovietization, Cyrillic script was used to write the language. From 1991 on, a new, revised Latin alphabet has been employed to write Azerbaijani. One will also encounter renditions of Azerbaijani names in Western languages written in Latin script.

The fact that Azerbaijani names can be written in different scripts means that one must be careful in providing the appropriate Latin- and/or Cyrillic-script forms. According to RDA 9.2.2.5.2: “If a person’s name has appeared in different language forms in resources associated with the person,” the cataloger should “choose as the preferred name the form that corresponds to the language of most of the resources.” RDA 9.2.2.5.3 stipulates: “If a name is found in more than one non-preferred script, transliterate it according to the scheme for the original language of most of the works”. Extrapolating from these principles, one should choose as the preferred form of an Azerbaijani person’s name the form that appears to occur most frequently in published sources. If the person was writing between 1929 and 1991, the preferred form of his or her name is most likely to be the Cyrillic Azeri form. If the person was writing primarily after 1991, it is likely that the most common form of his or her name will be in Latin Azeri, though one will likely find Russian forms as well.

2.2. Forms of patronymic particles

The forms of the words used to form patronymics, such as “oğlu” and “qızi”, should be written in the lower case. Note that the Latin and Cyrillic Azeri forms of these names will differ:

Latin Azeri: oğlu qızı

Cyrillic Azeri: оглы ҝызы

Transliteration: ogly ġyzy

Note also that Western and Russian-language forms of these patronymic-forming words may differ from the Latin Azeri versions (e.g., “oglu”, “oghlu”, not “oğlu”; and “gyzy”, “gizi”, “qyzy”, “kyzy”, not “qızı”). Western language forms and Russian-language forms of these patronymic particles should, as a rule, be treated as variants. However, if the Russian form of the name appears as the most common form of the name in published sources, it is treated as the preferred form. In that case, the transliterated Russian form should be used as the form for the access point, and the Cyrillic Russian form (and any other non-Azeri transliteration forms) should be treated as variant forms (e.g., “ogly” in the access point, with “оглы” and “oghlu” as variants).

2.3. Treatment of patronymic particles

Although the words used to form patronymics (e.g., “oğlu”, “qızı”) are written as separate words, they form a single unit with the preceding name of the father and should not, under any circumstances, be treated as a separate and distinct element of the name. In particular, because these are generic words (“son” and “daughter”, respectively), they should never form the first element in a name:

Examples (in MARC format):

100 1 Sabir qızı, Jalä

400 1 Qızı, Jalä Sabir [Incorrect]

100 1 Novruzov, Ėlʹdar Novruz ogly
400 1 Ogly Novruzov, Ėlʹdar Novruz [Incorrect]

Note that if a cataloger uses a macro to create an authority record, the macro will generally treat such names as compound names and will automatically supply additional variant access points in which the first element is a patronymic particle such as “oğlu”, “qızı” (or their variants). Such variant access points should be deleted from the record:

100 1 Soltan qızı, Zeynäb

~~400 1 Qızı, Zeynäb Soltan~~ [Incorrect]

400 1 Älizadä, Zeynäb Soltan qızı

670 Azärbaycan müsälmanlari vä idman, 2005: ǂb t.p. (Zeynäb Soltan qızı) colophon

(Zeynäb Soltan qızı Älizadä)

100 1 Suleĭmanov, Seĭmur Ėlʹman ogly

~~400 1 Ogly Suleĭmanov, Seĭmur Ėlʹman~~ [Incorrect]

400 1 Сулейманов, Сеймур Эльман оглы

667 Non-Latin script reference not evaluated.

670 Smeshannai︠a︡ zadacha dli︠a︡ volnovogo uravnenii︠a︡ i uravnenii︠a︡ Soboleva v

t︠s︡ilindricheskoĭ oblasti, 2009: ǂb t.p. (Сулейманов Сеймур Эльман оглы =

Suleĭmanov Seĭmur Ėlʹman ogly)

100 1 Tofik gyzy, Gi︠u︡lʹshan, ǂd 1953-

~~400 1 Gyzy, Gi︠u︡lʹshan Tofik, ǂd 1953-~~ [Incorrect]

400 1 Tofig gyzy, Gi︠u︡lʹshan, ǂd 1953-

400 1 Tofik kyzy, Gi︠u︡lʹshan, ǂd 1953-

~~400 1 Kyzy, Gi︠u︡lʹshan Tofik, ǂd 1953-~~ [Incorrect]

400 1 Тофик гызы, Гюльшан, ǂd 1953-

667 Machine-derived non-Latin script reference project.

667 Non-Latin script reference not evaluated.

670 Samai︠a︡ velikai︠a︡ taĭna, 2005: ǂb t.p. (Gi︠u︡lʹshan Tofik gyzy) cover (Gi︠u︡lʹshan Tofig

gyzy) back cover (Gi︠u︡lʹshan Tofik kyzy, b. 1953)

2.4. Sources for variant forms

Because an Azerbaijani author’s name can appear in several different forms in his or her published works (i.e., in binomial or trinomial pattern Latin Azeri and Cyrillic Azeri forms, Cyrillic “russified” forms, or Latin-script forms in Western languages), it is important to search the sources that one is consulting carefully for variant forms of an author’s name. As a rule, it is advised to check the title page verso and colophon, as well as the title page, of works serving as sources for authority records since these sources of information are likely to yield variant forms of the name. Because of the different forms that Azerbaijani personal names can take, one should, as a rule, conduct additional research on persons bearing such names.

Examples (in MARC format):

100 1 Alieva, Ana-khanum

400 1 Alieva, A. S. ǂq (Ana-khanum Samed kyzy) [From title page verso, with fuller

form taken from colophon]

400 1 Ălii̐eva, Anakhanym Sămăd gyzy [From colophon]

670 Her Vorsovye kovry Azerbaĭdzhana XIX-nachala XX veka, 1987: ǂb t.p.

(Ana-khanum Alieva) t.p. verso (Alieva A.S.) colophon (Ana-khanum Samed kyzy

Alieva; Anakhanym Sămăd gyzy Ălii̐eva)

100 1 Alieva, A. S. ǂq (Aida Salim kyzy)

400 1 Alieva, Aida Salim kyzy [From colophon]

400 1 Ălii̐eva, Aida Sălim gyzy [From colophon]

670 Her Planirovka i zastroĭka goroda Baku, 1946-2000 gg., 1988: ǂb t.p. (A.S.

Alieva) colophon (Aida Salim kyzy Alieva, Aida Sălim gyzy Ălii̐eva)

In both of these examples, the work serving as the source of information about the author’s name contains variant forms of the author’s name, including Russian transcriptions as well as Azerbaijani versions, some, but not all with the person’s patronymic.

Sources:

• Bashirov, Kamil. (2012). Azerbaijani Personal Names Origins, Meanings and Development: http://www.visions.az/social,371/

• Babaeva, Zarifa. (2010). Endings reveal roots. Region Plus: http://regionplus.az/en/articles/view/3776

• Patronymics (Azeri section), Wikipedia, n.d.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronymic#Azerbaijani

Revised: Mar. 2015