-bey

Law No. 2590, adopted on 26 November 1934, abolished honorifics and titles such as Ağa, Hacı, Hafız, Hoca, Molla, Efendi, Bey, Beyefendi, Paşa and Hanım. Under the law, citizens are referred to by their names alone before the law and in official documents. Bey is one of the titles on that list. This page looks at the word as it appears inside surnames.

Bey goes back to Old Turkic beg ‘chief, lord, leader of a clan’. In everyday speech it still follows a man’s given name as a polite form of address. In surnames, however, it is not a title but an element of a compound.

The element is a full word and does not change under vowel harmony. It occurs in two patterns. In the first, bey joins an adjective or noun and becomes the last element. In the second, it follows a personal name and comes before -oğlu, giving -beyoğlu.

Examples of the first pattern are short. Karabey contains kara; in surnames that word is read as a colour and also as ‘strong, great’. Akbey is built with ak ‘clean, honest’, and Erbey with er ‘brave man’. Bozbey has boz ‘grey, the colour of the steppe’, and Kocabey koca ‘big; elder’. In all of them bey carries the meaning.

The second pattern shows plainly how a family name is put together. Alibeyoğlu means ‘son of Ali Bey’, Hasanbeyoğlu ‘son of Hasan Bey’. Article 6 of the Surname Regulation (Soyadı Nizamnamesi) says a surname is used either alone or with “(oğlu)”. Names in -beyoğlu follow the second route. The element -oğlu itself has its own page.

The risk of a false match is low. The surname Bey on its own is not a compound; it is classed directly among the old titles. Words that begin with bey, such as beyaz ‘white’, are unrelated, because the element always sits at the end of a name.

The records do not show why a family chose a name containing bey. This page gives only the meaning of the word, its place in names and the relevant legal texts.