Surname Law timeline: from 1926 to today

Why start in 1926?

The Surname Law came in 1934, but the legal story starts in 1926. Law No. 743, the Turkish Civil Code, was passed on 17 February 1926 and published as a supplement to the Resmî Gazete no. 339 of 4 April 1926. Its Article 936 said it would take effect six months after publication, which meant 4 October 1926.

The link between the Civil Code and the Surname Law is spelled out in Article 10 of Law No. 2525. Once the law’s own period had passed, anyone wanting to change their surname would be subject to “the provisions of the Civil Code on this matter”. The Surname Law created the surnames; the Civil Code would govern what came after.

1934: four laws and a regulation in one year

1934 is the year of surname legislation:

• 21 June: the Surname Law (No. 2525) is passed.
• 2 July: it is published in the Resmî Gazete (no. 2741). The two-year window for reporting surnames starts running.
• 24 November: Law No. 2587 gives the President the surname Atatürk. It is published on 27 November.
• 26 November: Atatürk gives İsmet Paşa the surname İnönü. The same day, Law No. 2590 is passed, abolishing titles such as ağa, hacı, efendi, bey and paşa. It is published and takes effect on 29 November.
• 17 December: Law No. 2622 bars anyone else from taking the surname Atatürk. It is published on 24 December.
• 24 December: the cabinet approves the Surname Regulation. It is published on 27 December.

More detail: the Surname Law, the Surname Regulation, Atatürk and assigned surnames, the law abolishing titles.

Was 2 January 1935 a deadline?

No, though it is often described as one. 2 January 1935 is the day the Surname Law took effect and the regulation began to apply. Registration of surnames opened that day. From then on, no birth could be recorded without a surname.

The deadline was 2 July 1936, two years after the law’s publication. Village heads and municipalities had until 15 July 1936 to hand certified registers to the district and provincial governors. Anyone who had not chosen a surname by then had one chosen by the governor or district governor. See how surnames were registered.

2001–2009: a new Civil Code and civil-registry law

• 22 November 2001: the Turkish Civil Code, Law No. 4721, is passed and published on 8 December 2001 (no. 24607). It takes effect on 1 January 2002 and repeals the old Law No. 743. Name changes today rest on its Article 27.
• 25 April 2006: the Civil Registry Services Law, No. 5490, is passed and published on 29 April 2006 (no. 26153). Its Articles 35 and 36 govern court-ordered corrections to civil records.
• 25 March 2009: the Surname Regulation is extensively amended (no. 2009/14848), with effect from 29 April 2009. The 1934 registration procedure is repealed.

2011–2019: court rulings and administrative routes

• 8 December 2011: the Constitutional Court strikes down the first sentence of Article 4 of the Surname Law, which gave the husband the right to choose the surname. The annulment takes effect on 14 February 2012.
• 19 October 2017: Law No. 7039 is passed and published on 3 November 2017 (no. 30229). It adds two key provisions to the Civil Registry Services Law: an administrative route for divorced women and women with double surnames (Additional Article 3), and a two-year, one-time administrative surname change (Temporary Article 8).
• 6 December 2019: Law No. 7196 is passed and published on 24 December 2019 (no. 30988). It opens a new three-year administrative window and widens it to names that offend public morals or are considered ridiculous (Temporary Article 11).

2023–2024: married women’s surnames and public notice

• 22 February 2023: the Constitutional Court annuls Article 187 of the Civil Code, headed “The wife’s surname” (case 2022/155, decision 2023/38). The code’s table of amendments gives 28 January 2024 as the date the annulment took effect.
• 14 November 2024: Law No. 7532 amends Article 27(2) of the Civil Code. A court-ordered name change is now entered in the civil register and announced on the Press Advertising Agency’s (Basın İlan Kurumu) notice portal. The change takes effect on 27 November 2024.

For today’s rules: changing a surname today.

Where do these dates come from?

Each date comes from the law’s entry in the official legislation database (Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi) or from the archived issue of the Resmî Gazete. The publication and effective dates of Law No. 743 come from Resmî Gazete issue 339. The date the surname İnönü was given comes from a peer-reviewed study that cites the newspapers of the time. The timeline below names the source for each line.