Şen-

Şenol reads like a wish: şen ol, ‘be cheerful’. Şenkal is a similar wish: şen kal, ‘stay cheerful’. Some surnames with Şen- rest on imperative patterns like these. Others are plain compounds.

Şen is an adjective in the TDK dictionary meaning ‘cheerful, merry, joyful’. It can describe a person, a house or a song. In surnames it sits in front as a positive wish or quality.

This one-syllable adjective does not change under vowel harmony. The element after it keeps its own vowels. In Şenay front-vowel şen joins back-vowel ay ‘moon’, with no space between them.

There are two structures, and they are worth keeping apart. The first is a compound with a noun or name element. Şener is ‘cheerful man’. Şentürk means ‘cheerful Turk’, Şengül ‘cheerful rose’ and Şenyurt ‘cheerful homeland’. Şenel is made of şen and el ‘realm, people’. Şensoy is analysed as ‘cheerful lineage’. Şenay means ‘cheerful moon’. In these compounds the core meaning lies in the second element.

In the second structure the second element is a verb. Şenol contains the imperative of ol- ‘to be, become’, and Şenkal that of kal- ‘to stay’. These surnames are short sentences rather than noun phrases. Besides being compounds, they therefore carry a verbal structure. The meaning is read as a wish.

Şener, Şenol, Şengül and Şenay are also common given names. Whether a surname came from a given name or was chosen directly as a compound can only be known from a source.

The word most open to a false split is şenlik. It is historically şen plus the suffix -lik, but today it is a single dictionary entry meaning ‘festivity, public celebration’. As a surname it is read as that word, not as a Şen- compound. Nor should Şenol and Şener be cut into separate suffixes such as -er or -ol; their second elements are free words.

Şen- belongs to the same field as surnames of emotion and joy. Unlike single-word names such as Mutlu, Neşeli or Coşkun, it is the first element of a compound.