DUSHANBE, January 25, 2014, Asia-Plus — The item entitled “Ticked ”Ov”: Tajik Officials Unhappy Russian Surnames Back in Fashion” that was posted on Radio Liberty’s website on January 24 notes that the spelling of one”s name was once a point of patriotic pride in Tajikistan, where people rushed to drop Russian-style suffixes just a few years ago.
After the country”s president, in a nod to Tajik identity, dropped his Russified name Emomali Sharifovich Rahmonov for Emomali Rahmon in 2007, name endings like “-ov,” “-ev,” and “-ovich” began to disappear.
The alarm bell was sounded by Tajik Prosecutor-General Sherkhon Salimzoda in an opinion piece he penned for the government newspaper
Jumhuriya
t (The Republic) on January 21.
Describing a trend he says began two years ago, Salimzoda said Russian-style spellings of surnames and patronymics are again in vogue, particularly among young men.
As proof he presented figures culled from the country”s three largest universities, where he said only two students specifically requested that their names be changed to their Tajik form in 2013, whereas 513 requested that their names be spelled with Russian-style endings.
But while Salimzoda has called the reversal a blow to Tajik national pride, many young Tajiks argue that this is no name game — it”s a necessity.
The main reason to go back to the Russian-style spellings of their names, they say, is to avoid trouble in Russia. More than one in seven Tajiks travel to Russia every year for employment as migrant workers, for which they are often the target of discrimination and even racially-charged violence.
Tajiks began dropping Russian-style suffixes in the early 1990s, amid a wave of national pride and efforts to restore Tajik identity following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Many formally changed their names and ensured that the idea would stick with the next generation by giving newborns Tajik-style names.
Names and surnames in Tajikistan can be seen as an indicator of societal trends and preferences.
In the 1980s and 1990s names from Tajik-Persian history and literature became increasingly popular for children. Thousands of babies were named after Persian royals and heroes, or characters from Persian literature.
In the past decade, however, Tajiks have become fond of Islamic names, reflecting the growing influence of Islam in society.
