-soy

In Turkish the very word for ‘surname’, soyadı, is built on soy. Article 1 of the Surname Law, Law No. 2525 of 1934, uses it in its first sentence: “Her Türk öz adından başka soy adını da taşımağa mecburdur” (every Turk must carry a surname in addition to a given name). It is no surprise, then, that the same word turns up inside surnames as an element of its own.

Soy is an old Turkic noun meaning ‘lineage, family, descent’. In surnames it is the final element and carries the meaning of the compound. The first element qualifies it. Because it is a full word, it ignores vowel harmony: Aksoy, Gürsoy and Özsoy all keep the same form.

The examples show the pattern clearly. Aksoy joins ak ‘clean, honest’ and means ‘clean lineage’. Ersoy has er ‘brave man’, so ‘brave lineage’. Gürsoy uses gür ‘strong, abundant’, and Ulusoy ulu ‘great, lofty’. Karasoy contains kara; in surnames that word is read not only as a colour but also as ‘strong, great’. Özsoy is ‘genuine lineage’, Yücesoy ‘exalted lineage’, Şensoy ‘cheerful lineage’ and Kocasoy ‘great lineage’.

Some names hold two recognised elements at once. Ersoy begins with Er- and ends in -soy. Such a name can appear on both element pages, while the head of the compound remains soy.

When soy comes first, the structure changes. In Soylu, Soysal and Soydan the word leads and is followed by a suffix or another element. Those names are treated in the category for lineage words.

The risk of a false match is low here. Two points still deserve attention. Turkish has a separate verb soymak ‘to peel, to strip’, but surnames ending in -soy contain the noun, not that verb. And the two parts are always written together as one surname.

The records rarely show when or why a family chose one of these names. What this page describes is only the meaning of the words and how they join.