Armenian Names in America

Abstract

THE DIFFICULTIES FACING the immigrant in the United States with regard to his patronymic have been discussed in these pages before.' Among immigrants of Finnish or Italian origin, it has been shown that the crux of the problem lies in whether to change the spelling to enforce the correct pronunciation or to accept the mispronunciations as they occur. The name may be abbreviated to simplify it to American ears, but seldom is there any compelling reason to translate it into English or to abandon it altogether, even though this has been done in many cases. A more difficult burden is borne by the newcomers who come from lands somewhat further afield than does the average immigrant, and whose names not only present difficulties ofpronunciation to American friends or employers, but whose sound seems coarse and unesthetic to their ears. Such an immigrant group is the Armenian community in America, which numbers some 250,000 members settled mainly in the Boston, New York, and Philadelphia area, with other colonies in Detroit, Miami, and several in central California. Although the Armenian language belongs to the Indo-European family, it is a branch by itself and presents a distinctly singular sound to the unaccustomed ear. The unique character of the Armenian language manifests itself to Americans mostly through Armenian personal names. With rare exceptions, all Armenian surnames end in the distinctive and unmistakable suffix -ian, (Missirian, Malezian, Khodjian, etc.), except when the last sound of the stem ends in a vowel, in which case the i of the suffix usually, though not always, changes to a y (Saroyan, Kermoyan, Babayan, etc.). This suffix corresponds to the -ian in such words as sectarian and Martian; it is, in fact, a genitive singular.2 It implies 'descent,' and usually graces a stem of Armenian origin. Very frequently, however, the root of the name is Turkish, and even, on occasion, Greek, Arabic, or Persian.3 Armenian names are de-