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In part I of "Armenian First Names Through the Ages," we explored the world of Armenian first names up until the end of the nineteenth century. Our guide was Hratchia Adjarian’s magisterial dictionary of names. In part II, we focus on the twentieth century, a period when major social changes led some names to be abandoned and others to emerge for the very first time.
In the post-genocide diaspora, entirely new names—too new in the 1940s for Adjarian to have noted them in his dictionary—came into being in reaction to the massacre, dispossession and displacement so recently experienced:
Alongside the topographical, names related to the natural world have likewise come about in the past century:
A successor to Adjarian would need to determine precisely why names like these have largely overtaken girl’s names of yesteryear with the feminine -ուհի [-ouhi] ending (e.g., Zarouhi, Makrouhi, Dirouhi, etc.). The multilingual contexts in which Armenians live may well be a factor. In many parts of the world today, Armenians live between cultures, and parents who want to give their child an Armenian name may consider how it will be (mis)pronounced outside Armenian-speaking circles. New cultural contexts in the twentieth-century diaspora may have popularized Armenian names that can be easily read and pronounced by speakers of the dominant language. In the English-dominant United States today, for example, Ashkhens and Mgrdichs are few, but Tamars and Shants are many.  The medieval queen Tamar of Georgia. According to Adjarian, the name Tamar has been used among Armenians in the Caucasus since the tenth century. A result of Georgian cultural contact, the name was not used among Armenians elsewhere until the twentieth century. New cultural contexts may have also popularized names that fit a particular pattern in the dominant culture. For example, many French girls' names end in –ine (Céline, Nadine, Christine, etc.). Did new Armenian names like Arine, Sarine and Tsoline take flight under this influence? The answer will take a dedicated researcher to find out.
This writer was referring specifically to naming trends among Armenians in Istanbul, and geography made a difference. According to Adjarian, there was an urban/rural divide when it came to names: “If we go to a far-off village, the names we would hear most often would be Hebrew, Greek, and Turkish names,” he wrote in the early twentieth century. “Native Armenian, Pahlavi, European, Russian, and national names are barely ever heard. In Istanbul, Yerevan and other educated centers (e.g., Tiflis, Izmir), the former have already fallen out of use, and the latter are more common” (354-355). In the village of Khoultig near Paghesh/Bitlis, for example, we find exactly this pattern. According to one of its locals, names of Hebrew origin like Yester and Apraham prevailed, alongside names of Turkish origin like Frangul and Ayvaz and names of Greek origin like Housdiané and Alexan (145-147). Not all parts of the Armenian world, in other words, named children in the same way. Today, we can see something similar with names like Lilit and Gor, which are much more common among Armenians in the Republic of Armenia and its diaspora than among other communities of Armenians. While in many places today, having an Armenian name is a point of pride for the parents and child, in decades past it was common for Armenians to change their names in hopes of blending in. As early as 1893, we find a sharp letter-to-the-editor in which the writer criticizes his fellow Armenian immigrants in the United States for being so quick to Americanize their first names. “Bedros calls himself Peter. Hagop takes on the name Jacob. Any Kevork says he is a George. Krikor becomes Gregory. Hovhannes becomes John, and Boghos becomes Paul.” And taking a swing at what he saw as a lack of creativity, he noted, “I worked in Franklin, Massachusetts, two years ago. There were 18 Armenians there, and eight of us were named Charlie” (256).  An Americanization class is Portland, Maine, c. 1923.
Ultimately, Armenian names are names Armenians use. It is their prevalence and longevity that make them Armenian. Adjarian began the work of documenting them decades ago and did not discount those that had roots in other languages and cultures. Since the publication of his dictionary in the 1940s, Armenians around the world have made new names their own and have added new pages to the historical record that Adjarian had set out to create. Further Reading
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