Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend I.Alizade / Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament's Permanent Commission on Culture and member of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE, Rafael Huseynov, said that refusing the surnames ending with 'ov-ova', 'ev-eva', 'zade', 'ski' will be compulsory for citizens of Azerbaijan who were born after 1991.
The appearance of surnames ending with 'ov-ova', 'ev-eva', 'zade', 'ski' in Azerbaijan began at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. After Azerbaijan regained its independence, the issue of rejecting surnames ending with 'ov-ova', 'ev-eva' came on the agenda. The issue has been presented several times for discussion in Parliament, but it failed to devise a draft law on this.
Three years ago, Huseynov prepared a draft Law on Names and Surnames which was discussed with the participation of well-known scientists, ethnographers and intellectuals of Azerbaijan.
According to the draft law, it needs to refuse current Azerbaijani surname endings - the surnames should be without endings or suffixes li, lyu, lu. Applying this law to surnames of representatives of people who are citizens of Azerbaijan and have no national surname endings will be voluntary. In addition, applying this law to citizens who were born up to 18 October 1991 will also be voluntary. "They may change or not change the endings of their surnames. However, the law will be compulsory for the citizens who were born since Azerbaijan regained its independence," Huseynov said.
The MP said that it is not clear yet when the draft law will be presented for discussion.
The Chairman of the Commission on Culture, Nizami Jafarov, said that there can not be any compulsion in this issue. "It is a very complicated issue. If we take any surname endings and make its application compulsory, what will we do with the representatives of other nations who reside in Azerbaijan? If we take compulsory measures, they will have no relations to the Azerbaijanis who reside in Georgia, South Azerbaijan and other countries," he said.
According to Jafarov, surely we need to adopt a Law on Names and Surnames.