Scribes, scholars and healers

Dilmaç means ‘interpreter’, and it is one of the Turkic words that travelled furthest. Old Turkic tilmaç passed into Hungarian as tolmács and into the Slavic languages in similar forms. German Dolmetscher, ‘interpreter’, stands at the end of that road. A German interpreter's job title and the surname Dilmaç share one root. This hub gathers surnames from the work of writing, translating, knowing and healing.

Those who wrote

Yazıcı is derived from the Turkic verb yaz-, ‘to write’. In Ottoman times it named a person who handled written business. It is one of the most frequent members of the group. According to TÜİK ADNKS 2025, Yazıcı is the 2nd most common surname in Rize, with 4,139 people. The same year's data put Yazıcı 14th in Trabzon, with 4,931 people. Yazıcıoğlu is the patronymic form of the same word.

Kâtip names the same work with an Arabic word: kātib, ‘one who writes’. Turkish spelling keeps the circumflex, and the surname appears as Kâtip and Kâtipoğlu. Kitap, ‘book’, and kâtip both come from the Arabic root k-t-b, ‘to write’. Kitapçı, ‘bookseller’, is the branch of that family that opens onto the market.

Healing and building

Hekim is Arabic ḥakīm. In Arabic its core sense is ‘wise’; in Turkish it came to mean a physician, someone who treats the sick. Hekimoğlu is its -oğlu form. Cerrah is also Arabic (jarrāḥ) and names the one who treats wounds and operates: a surgeon. Mimar comes from Arabic miʿmār and means the architect who designs a building and directs its construction.

Patterns

Three shapes stand out. A noun derived from a Turkic verb: Yazıcı. A borrowed trade word used on its own: Kâtip, Hekim, Cerrah, Mimar. And the patronymic with -oğlu: Hekimoğlu, Kâtipoğlu. Article 6 of the Surname Regulation lets a surname stand alone or with “(oğlu)”.

The 1934 angle

Article 3 of the Surname Law banned names of ‘rank and office’ (rütbe ve memuriyet). Article 9 of the Regulation spells this out for ranks and offices of the old and new state cadres. A word like kâtip can be a trade and an office at once. Such surnames are found in today's registers. Why any one family chose one cannot be explained without documents. Law 2590, passed the same year, abolished titles such as hoca. In its sense of ‘teacher’, hoca stands at the edge of this group.

Why it matters

These names keep the trace of a world of reading, writing and learning. Turkic yazıcı and Arabic kâtip describe the same work and live side by side. Dilmaç reminds us that words migrate too. A surname does not prove a family's profession. It carries the story of a word.