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First Names and Political Change in Modern TurkeyAuthor(s): Richard W. BullietSource: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Nov., 1978), pp. 489-495Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/162075Accessed: 09/12/2010 07:27

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Int. Y. Middle East Stud. 9 (1978) 489-495 Printed in Great Britain

Richard W. Bulliet

FIRST NAMES AND POLITICAL CHANGE

IN MODERN TURKEY

One of the few predictable opportunities for the exercise of free will that comesthe way of most human beings is the bestowal of names upon their children. Tobe sure, local or national custom may legally restrict or otherwise limit the scopeof that freedom in some cases; but by and large, there is normally some choiceto be made, and the beneficiary of the choice, the child, is inevitably powerless toinfluence it.

A ruthless combing of anthropological literature might well turn up glaringexceptions to these generalizations, but for present purposes they will suffice tomake a point. That point is that insofar as the choice of names given children bytheir parents is a free choice, the names chosen may potentially be consideredreflections of the influences impinging upon those parents and guiding theirchoices. Whether it is worth the effort to tap this potential and to attempt using

name choices as indicators of influences acting upon parents may be debated.One consideration alone suggests that the attempt should be made, however.That consideration is that naming is performed by individuals of all educationallevels and social stations. Consequently, examination of naming patterns mayafford a useful avenue for investigating social and cultural currents in periodsand places where sociological sampling is an impossibility.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate some of the possible methods of

name-pattern analysis and to illustrate their utility. The problem being investi-gated is that tough old chestnut, the modernization of Turkey.

The initial hypothesis is that political modernization in Turkey might bereflected in the frequency of use of common first names closely associated withthe Islamic religion. This hypothesis arises from extensive investigations ofmedieval Muslim naming patterns which have revealed that the most common-place Muslim first names vary significantly in popularity over long periods oftime.1 The three names that have been chosen for modern Turkey are Mehmet,Ahmet, and Ali, all three extremely common names. The most important sourceused for obtaining large quantities of names was the roster of all of the memberswho have ever served in the Turkish parliament.2 The birth dates of virtually allof these individuals are

recorded,and

geographicaldistribution is

guaranteed bythe electoral representation procedure. As for class origin and educational1 See, for example, R. W. Bulliet, 'Conversion to Islam and the Emergence of a

Muslim Society in Iran,' in N. Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam (New York, 1978).2 Kazim Oztiirk, Tiirkiye Biiyiik Millet Meclisi Albiimii, 23 Nisan, 1920-r4 Ekim, I973

(Ankara, 1973).

489

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490 Richard Bulliet

background of the members' parents who gave them their names, these have notbeen tested. It is assumed, however, that the social strata producing members of

parliament have not changed dramatically during the history of the TurkishRepublic, even though the specific characteristics of those strata probably have

changed. In other words, the parents of parliament members elected in themost recent election almost certainly have a higher literacy rate than the parentsof the members of the first parliament of 1920; on the average, however, theyprobably do not differ greatly in their place in society from that earlier set of

parents.In order to extend the chronological range of the survey back further in time,

the names of the fathers of the members of the 1920 parliament have been tabu-lated and

assignedthe date

I840.This date was chosen

by determiningthat the

members of that first parliament were mostly between 33 and 63 years of age atthe time of election. This indicates a median birthdate of 1872. If their fathers'

age averaged 32 years at the time of their births, then the median date of thosefathers' births would be 1840. Hence I840. It is not a very precise date, but itwill serve. One still earlier point on the chronological scale has been obtained bytabulating the names of members of the prorogued parliament of 1877-1878and assuming that they ranged in age from 33 to 63 at the time of their election,as did the members of the 1920 parliament. This yields a median birthdate of1828.3

Moving forward chronologically, very extensive name samples were obtained

through the kind assistance of Professor Miikerrem Hi( of Istanbul University.These samples consist of lists of entering students in the Economics Faculty ofthat university for the period I974-1977. In addition, Professor Hic's assistantstabulated names in the current enrollment roster of Fatih Elementary School inthe Fatih district of Istanbul, grades I through V. Assuming an average age onmatriculation in the Economics Faculty of nineteen and an average age on

entering elementary school of seven, these tabulations yield figures for groupsborn around 1955 and i967.4

The results of all of these tabulations are set forth on the accompanyinggraph which depicts the fluctuation in the frequency of the names Mehmet,Ahmet, and Ali from I828 until 1967. From 1862 until 1935 the popularity ofthese names is shown every five years according to the birthdates of the membersof parliament. Earlier and later points on the graph were determined in themanner already described.

3 Parliament members are listed in the appendix of Robert Devereux, The FirstOttoman Constitutional Period (Baltimore, 1963). Only the Muslim members have beencounted.

4 It is debatable whether these later name samples are socially comparable, speaking ofthe parents, to the samples drawn from the Turkish parliaments. Geographical spreadwould be comparable for students in the Economics Faculty but not for the elementaryschool students. Unfortunately, tabulation totals only were available from Fatih Elemen-

tary School instead of the actual enrollment roster. This has limited the amount of

analysis that could be done for 1967.

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First Names and Political Change in Modern Turkey 491

35 -

a^__~ *-~ ~ Popularity of the names Mehmet, Ahmet, and Ali in modem Turkey30 -

25 -

20-

5I\

10-

5-

1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980

Overall, the graph shows striking changes in the popularity of the threenames. From a high plateau in the pre-Tanzimat period, when a third of themale population represented by the samples bore one of the three names, the

popularity curve plunges sharply and steadily to a low point in 1885-1889followed, after a brief recovery, by a still deeper low in 1905-1909 when barely8 per cent of the male population bore the names. Then comes a steady andconsistent recovery of popularity that lasts until 1920-1924 followed by a sudden

sharp drop to a new plateau that has remained almost stable ever since.

Clearly, there is no way of establishing for the thousands of cases involved theactual motivation behind each instance of name giving. After all, there are alwaysuncles and grandfathers to be commemorated, anecdotes and puns to be recorded,vows to be fulfilled, and marital disharmonies to be smoothed; and naming isone way of doing all of these things. Nevertheless, it is impossible to overlook thefact that the major features of the popularity curve of the names Mehmet,Ahmet, and Ali coincide precisely with certain major events in the history ofmodern Turkey. Most notably, the lowest point of the curve occurs at the verymoment of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, and the sharp termination of the

ensuing recovery of popularity coincides exactly with the establishment of theTurkish Republic in 1923. If these correspondences do not absolutely prove a

relationship between naming patterns and political change, they at the veryleast invite a closer examination of the curve as a whole with such a relationshipin mind.

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492 Richard Bulliet

Regarding the long, steady decline in popularity from 1840 to 1885-I889, it ishard to resist the conclusion that modernization of the Tanzimat variety con-

stituted a formidable attack upon the idea that Islam should be the basis ofpolitical and social life. It is impossible to establish what proportion of indivi-duals named Mehmet, Ahmet, and Ali were so named because of pious feelingson the part of their parents, but it is difficult to conceive of an alternative moti-vation for name giving that might have undergone so steady and pronounced a

change in the period in question. As for the names that were used instead ofMehmet, Ahmet, and Ali, no particular group stands out as showing a corres-

ponding increase in popularity. Indeed, virtually all first names appearing in the

samples for this period are of Arabic origin and resist being broken down into

significant groupings.If the pronounced decline ending in 1885-1889 is seen as a reflection of the

steady spread of Tanzimat secularism, the brief recovery that peaks in 1895-I899must surely reflect the influence of the Islamic religious and political revival

sponsored by Abdiilhamit II. It is perhaps noteworthy that it was during theI89os that Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani was carrying on his revivalist campaign inIstanbul under the aegis of the sultan.

Both political history and the graph of popularity of the three names point tothe fact that Islamic revivalism could make little headway against the modern-

izing tendencies pushing in the opposite direction. Professor Stanford Shaw hastermed the reign of Abdulhamit II the culmination of the Tanzimat, and the

cogency of his statement is fully borne out by the graph.5 The nadir in popularityof the three names comes in 1905-1909, the same half decade that saw the successof the Young Turk Revolution and the end of Abdiilhamit's reign. The period ofTanzimat modernization with its secularizing tendencies was at an end. Peopleof all millets may have cheered the triumph of the revolutionaries in I908, but

immediately thereafter the Muslims began to turn back toward Islam in their

private thinking about their children's names.The trend back to Mehmet, Ahmet, and Ali was firm and steep as the Balkan

Wars gave way to World War I, which in turn was succeeded by the waragainst the Greek army of occupation. Whatever specific policies the Ottoman

government may have been advocating during these years, an increasing propor-tion of the populace seems to have experienced them as years in which Islamic

identity was threatened and needed reaffirmation in naming. That this is not

simply an illusion is clearly shown by the sharp fall in popularity of the threenames in 1925-1929 with the consolidation of the new republic and the adoptionof Atatiirk's major reforms.

The final fifteen years of the Ottoman Empire, disrupted as they were by war

and disorder, seem to have had a greater effect upon people's religiosity and needto assert their identity as Muslims than did the famous secularizing reforms ofthe Atatiirk period. After the initial fall in the popularity of the three names

5 Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern

Turkey, Vol. II (Cambridge, 1977), chap. 3.

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First Names and Political Change in Modern Turkey 493

following the establishment of the republic, their popularity has remained

remarkably steady for some four decades. There has been neither the drop in

popularity typical of Tanzimat secularism nor the rise in popularity that mightreflect a religious backlash against too much secularism. It might even be con-cluded that the disestablishment of Islam from its central place in people'slives was primarily a product of Tanzimat modernization and that the Atatiirkreforms simply ratified and made visible what was already an accomplished fact.

This is probably the place to stop reading into a simple graph an entireuniverse of political phenomena, but there is still more to be said about namingpatterns. In particular, there is the question of nationalism as expressed in theuse of new, distinctly Turkish names. As already mentioned, in the nineteenth

century virtuallyall male names contained in the lists used were of Arabic

origin. Today, however, it is evident that names of Turkish linguistic origin are

quite common. A question therefore arises as to how the adoption of new namesof Turkish linguistic derivation correlates with modern Turkish politicalhistory.

This question is not as easy to investigate as it sounds. To be sure, it is quitepossible to identify names of Turkish origin when they appear, but which is more

important: four new names borne by single individuals appearing in a givenperiod of time or a single new name borne by ten individuals? The problem ishow to evaluate quantitatively the introduction of new names, and there is noobvious formula for resolving the problem. Nevertheless, an effort can be made.

First, it is painfully apparent that however long a list of names one examines,there will always be previously unused names to be added if the list is substan-

tially lengthened. Names of extremely rare occurrence may not be importantindicators of anything, of course; but, on the other hand, their cumulative effect

may be striking. If half the individuals in a large sample bear names of eccentric

individuality while only a handful in a second sample bear such names, it mayfairly be concluded that eccentric individuality is more prevalent among the

parents of the former group than of the latter.

Looking at the names of members of the Turkish parliaments, it is possible todetermine in each five-year period what percentage of the names in use have not

appeared earlier. What one would expect is that each five-year list would show asmaller proportion of names not previously encountered. That would be thecase if the total onomasticon of names in use remained fairly static or if newnames were invented at a fairly constant rate. In fact, that is exactly what hap-pens. For example, among the I2 parliament members born between 1870 and1874 there are 71 names represented, 73 percent of which do not occur amongthe 93 parliament members born before that date. Looking at the 223 parliament

members born between 1905 and I909, however, one finds that 131 names are inuse but only 17 per cent of them have not previously been encountered amongthe I,604 parliament members born before I905.

The decrease in the percentage of new names in each five-year age cohort isnot perfectly regular, but it is steadily downward with no striking anomalies

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494 Richard Bulliet

until 1955. The two previous age cohorts, 1925-I929 and I930-1941, contain i8

per cent and 23 per cent previously unencountered names, respectively. In 1955,

however, almost 37 per cent of the 332 names in use had never before appeared.This means that after recording the names of 3,126 parliament members, insteadof finding ever fewer new names one encounters a greatly increased quantity ofnew names in I955. What this clearly indicates is that between 1940 and I955 anew era set in in Turkish naming practices.

What characterizes this new era? As expected, the figures indicate that themost distinctive characteristic is the replacement of Arabic names with names ofTurkish linguistic origin.6 Of the previously unencountered names that appear in

I9I0-I914, for example, only 8 per cent are of Turkish linguistic origin. A greater

number, 15 per cent,come from Persian!

By 1925-1929, however, 32 percent of

the previously unencountered names are Turkish and for the period 1930-194165 per cent. In I955 the figure for Turkish names is still very high, amounting to

59 per cent of all previously unencountered names.

Naming patterns, therefore, clearly seem to reflect a rise in Turkish national

identity in the republican period, although not any earlier. Still, it must be re-membered that before 1940 there was still, overall, no startling increase in thetotal number of names in use. Although the percentages of Turkish names

among the group of newly encountered names are fairly high between 1925 and

1941, these new Turkish names represent only 5 per cent of the names in use in

1925-1929 and 14 per cent of those in use in 1930-I941. By way of contrast, in

1955 the new trend is full-blown with 22 per cent of the names in use beingnames of Turkish origin which had not previously appeared. The total per-centage of Turkish origin names in use in 1955 is obviously higher still.

This all may seem to belabor the obvious since it is commonly understood thata concomitant of the growth of Turkish nationalism has been a growth in the

popularity of Turkish names. Several interesting points deserve to be made,however. The first is that while the use of common names with a fundamental

religious significance mirrors the course of Turkish political history almost to the

exact year, Turkish nationalism in naming lags far behind the main politicalsteps taken toward realizing nationalist goals. The 1908 revolution sparked noincrease in nationalistic names, nor did the establishment of the republic in 1923.In fact, the new trend in Turkish naming seems to proceed quite slowly through-out the Atatfirk period. From this it might be concluded that Turkish national-ism penetrated the population quite slowly. A more socially discriminatingexamination of naming practices might elucidate this possibility.

It is also possible, however, that the abandonment of the Arabic script in 1928was a prerequisite for a turn toward Turkish naming. It may be important that

the first generation of Turks to be educated in the Latin script came of child-

6 Linguistic identification of names was facilitated by Kemal Zeki Genqosman'sAnsiklopedik Turk Isimleri SQzliiUii Istanbul, 1975). My thanks to Professor MikerremHi9, for procuring this book for me and for his helpful discussions of several mattersraised in this article.

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First Names and Political Change in Modern Turkey 495

bearing age between I940 and 1955 when the great jump sets in in the use ofTurkish names. If this is the case, then it might be questioned whether the trend

toward using Turkish names represents nationalist feeling at all. It could bemore a linguistically based phenomenon.

Possibly the most important observation to make, however, is that the newtrend toward the use of Turkish names does not appear to be at the expense ofthe names Mehmet, Ahmet, and Ali. The popularity of these three names remains

quite steady as the new trend comes into evidence. Since in the prerepublicanperiod these three names had been so very sensitive to political changes, it is

interesting that they remain so steady during a period of startling changes in all

aspects of life. Does this suggest that the impact of modernization during the

republican periodhas had less effect

upon private religious feelingsthan is often

stated? Does it mean that modernization in the prerepublican period was felt toinvolve religious customs to a greater degree than in the period of Atatiirk? Doesit imply that Turkey has become divided into one section of the population with

deep and unmovable feelings rooted in Islam and another section that is respon-sive to the appeals of modernization and secular nationalism?

All of these questions and more arise from a consideration of changes in

naming patterns. The consideration that has been given to the subject in thisarticle has been rather slight. More could be done, and more sophisticatedmethods of analysis could be devised. It could also prove enlightening to make a

comparative study of name-pattern changes in other Islamic countries. I hopethat the results put forth here have been intriguing enough to lead others to

pursue investigations along similar lines.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY