Tools and objects

Kazan and Kazancı differ by a single suffix, but that suffix changes what the surname describes. Kazan is a large cooking pot, a cauldron. Kazancı is the person who makes or sells one. This hub covers only the first: the tool or object itself.

Tools

Balta (axe), keser (adze) and çekiç (hammer) are basic tools of wood and metal work. Balta is a Turkic word. Keser is a shaping tool whose blade sits at right angles to the handle. Örs is the heavy iron block on which a smith hammers metal; the word is Turkic. Tokmak is a wooden mallet. Some of these words may have served as nicknames before they became surnames. Any such nickname, or any link to a craft, can only be shown from documents; the surname alone proves nothing.

Vessels and household things

Kazan and kepçe are kitchen words. Kazan is Turkic and known since Old Turkic. Kepçe is a long-handled ladle for moving liquids. Kilit (lock), anahtar (key) and kova (bucket) also fit here. Anahtar is generally traced to Greek.

Objects of a life outdoors

Çadır (tent) and kement (lasso) are the tools of life on open land. Çadır is of Persian origin. Kement is the looped rope used to catch animals; dictionaries trace this word to Persian too. Değirmen, the mill that grinds grain, counts here as both machine and building.

Shape

Most of these surnames are single words with no suffix. Compounds with a colour are rarer; Akbalta, “white axe”, is one. As elsewhere, the head word decides the hub. Weapons such as kılıç (sword), kalkan (shield) and ok (arrow) are not here but in the war hub. In the same way, -CI forms such as Kazancı and Çadırcı are occupational surnames.

1934 and the bans

Article 3 of the Surname Law banned names that offended public decency or were disgusting or ridiculous. Our sources hold no record of whether any tool name was challenged under it. Article 8 gave the senior civil administrator the power to decide whether a name complied with the law. The final word, in other words, lay with the local administration.

Why it is interesting

Tool and object surnames are the most concrete words in the whole materials group. They describe ordinary work, not strength or beauty. That a word like örs can still carry a sense of endurance shows that even a plain object can describe a quality through metaphor.