Place name changes in Turkey

Place name changes in Turkey have been undertaken, periodically, in bulk from 1913 to the present by successive Turkish governments. Thousands of names within the Turkish Republic or its predecessor the Ottoman Empire have been changed from their popular or historic alternatives in favour of recognizably Turkish names, as part of Turkification policies. The governments have argued that such names are foreign or divisive, while critics of the changes have described them as chauvinistic. Names changed were usually of Armenian, Greek, Georgian, Laz, Bulgarian, Kurdish, Persian, Neo-Aramaic/Syriac, or Arabic origin.
Turkey's efforts to join the European Union in the early 21st century have led to a decrease in the incidence of such changes from local government, and the central government even more so. In some cases legislation has restored the names of certain villages. Place names that changed formally have frequently persisted in local dialects and languages throughout the ethnically diverse country.
The policy of turkifiying non-turkish names already arose in the late stages of the Ottoman Empire. In the early years of the Republic, although the idea of ‘Turkification’ continued to receive interest and support at the ideological level, no significant steps were taken in practice except in isolated instances. Radical forms began in the 1950s. From this date onwards, Turkification was adopted as a ‘state policy’ that transcended political powers. Following the coup d'état of 27 May 1960, within four months, nearly 10,000 new village names were put into official use. Approximately one third of all place names in Turkey were changed before 1965. Some 12,000 villages and 4,000 neighboring settlements, some with thousands of years of history, as well as thousands of rivers, mountains and geographical shapes were given new Turkish names.

History

Ottoman Empire

The Committee of Union and Progress took the reins of the Ottoman government through a coup d'état in 1913. At the height of World War I and during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, when the ethnic cleansing policies of non-Muslim Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian minorities were underway, Minister of War Enver Pasha issued an edict on 6 October 1916, declaring:
Enver Pasha did not change the geographical names belonging to Muslim minorities due to the Ottoman government's role as a Caliphate. His decree inspired many Turkish intellectuals to write in support of such measures. One such intellectual, Hüseyin Avni Alparslan, a Turkish soldier and author of books about Turkish language and culture, was inspired by the efforts of Enver Pasha, writing in his book Trabzon İli Lâz mı? Türk mü? that:
It is not known how many geographical names were changed under the ordinance. The ultimate overarching objective behind it failed due to the collapse of the Ottoman government and trials of its leaders before Ottoman and European courts for massacres against ethnic minorities committed in 1915.
A decreased level of cultural repression has taken place in the Turkish Republic; however, non-mainstream Turkic origin place names have invariably been officially renamed over the course of time.

Republic of Turkey

and secularism were two of the six founding principles of the Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the early decades of the Republic, aimed to create a nation state from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire. During the first three decades of the Republic, efforts to Turkify geographical names were a recurring theme. Imported maps containing references to historical regions such as Armenia, Kurdistan, or Lazistan were prohibited.
By 1927, all street and square names in Istanbul which were not of Turkish origin were changed.
In 1940 the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a circular which called for original or foreign language place names to be substituted with Turkish place names. Journalist and writer Ayşe Hür has noted that after the death of Atatürk and during the Democratic period of the Turkish Republic in the late 1940s and 50s, "ugly, humiliating, insulting or derisive names, even if they were Turkish, were subjected to changes. Village names with lexical components meaning red, bell, church were changed. To do away with "separatist notions", the Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Kurdish, Georgian, Tatar, Circassian, and Laz village names were also changed."
The Special Commission for Name Change was created in 1952 under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior. It was invested with the power to change all names that were not within the jurisdiction of the municipalities like streets, parks or places. In the commission were representatives from the Turkish Language Society, from the faculties geography, language and history from the Ankara University, the Military General Staff and the ministries of Defense, Internal Affair and education. The committee was working until 1978 and 35% of the villages in Turkey got their names changed. The initiative proved successful, as approximately 28,000 topographic names were changed, including 12,211 village and town names and 4,000 mountain, river, and other topographic names. This figure also included names of streets, monuments, quarters, neighborhoods, and other components that make up certain municipalities.
The committee was reinstated after the military coup of 1980 in 1983 and it changed the names of 280 villages. It was closed again in 1985 due to inefficiency. During the heightened tension between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish government, the focus of geographical name changing in the 1980s was on Kurdish villages, towns, rivers.etc.
In 1981, the Turkish government stated in the preface of Köylerimiz, a publication dedicated to names of Turkish villages, that:
At the culmination of the policy, no geographical or topographical names of non-Turkish origin remained. Some of the newer names resembled their native names, but with revised Turkish connotations.

Current status

Although geographical names have been formally changed in Turkey, their native names persist and continue in local dialects throughout the country. At times, Turkish politicians have also used the native names of cities during their speeches. In 2009, when addressing a crowd in the town of Güroymak, president Abdullah Gül used the native name Norşin. Also that year, when talking about his family origins, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used the native Greek name of Potamya instead of Güneysu.
Efforts at restoring the former names of geographical terms have been recently introduced in Turkey. In September 2012, legislation was introduced to restore the names of villages to their former native names. According to the bill, the province of Tunceli would be named Dersim, Güroymak would be named Norşin, and Aydınlar would be named Tilo. However, the Turkish Government authority later opposed the name Dersim, as the local municipality wanted to introduce the name Dersim for Tunceli.

Comparative analysis

Most of the geographical name changes occurred in the eastern provinces of the country and on the coast of the eastern Black Sea, where minority populations tend to live. Through independent study, etymologist Sevan Nişanyan estimates that, of the geographical location name changes, 4,200 were Greek, 4,000 Kurdish, 3,600 Armenian, 750 Arabic, 400 Assyrian, 300 Georgian, 200 Laz, and 50 others. The official statistics of The Special Commission for Name Change claim that the total number of villages, towns, cities, and settlements renamed is 12,211. The chart below lists the provinces and the number of villages or towns renamed.

Language	Known origin	Proposed origin	Total projected	Total percentage
Turkish	2,200	–	2,500	6.1
Kurdish/Zazaki	2,850	–	4,000	9.8
Armenian	1,491	450	3,600	8.8
Greek	1,090	430	4,200	10.2
Arabic	320	–	750	1.8
Syriac	165	–	400	1.0
Georgian	180	–	300	0.7
Laz	100	–	200	0.5
Other	40	–	50	0.1
Total changed names	8,436	880	16,000	39.9
Total unchanged names	N/A	N/A	25,000	60.1
Total	N/A	N/A	41,000	100.0

Notable geographical name changes

Armenian

Armenian geographic names were first changed under the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. In 1880, the word Armenia was banned from use in the press, schoolbooks, and governmental establishments, to be replaced with words like Anatolia or Kurdistan. Armenian name changing continued under the early Republican era up until the 21st century. It included the Turkification of last names, change of animal names, change of the names of Armenian historical figures, and the change and distortion of Armenian historical events.
Most Armenian geographical names were in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Villages, settlements, or towns that contain the suffix -kert, meaning built or built by, -shen, meaning village, and -van, meaning town, signify an Armenian name. Throughout Ottoman history, Turkish and Kurdish tribesmen have settled into Armenian villages and changed the native Armenian names. This was especially true after the Armenian genocide, when much of eastern Turkey was depopulated of its Armenian population.
Sevan Nişanyan estimates that 3,600 Armenian geographical locations have been changed.