Prohibition of Choosing Turkish Names for Children in Iran
For a long time, Azerbaijani parents in the Islamic Republic of Iran have been facing restrictions and prohibitions from the relevant bodies to choosing Turkish names for their children. Officials claim that no law prevents families from choosing Turkish names for their children. Still, they create a lot of paperwork when issuing birth certificates in Turkish and postpone the work for several days until the parents are humiliated and choose an approved name. Meanwhile, the civil registry officials have a list of Persian-Islamic names approved by the Islamic Republic. If the selected name for a Turkish child is not on that list, the family will not have the right to choose the name they prefer.
On the one hand, the authorities of the Islamic Republic deny any restrictions on the choice of names for children in the Turkish language. On the other hand, some other officials argue that choosing unapproved names creates differences and can fuel further ethnic clashes and harm national unity. Officials consider all Iranian citizens' linguistic and intellectual assimilation as a sign of "national unity" and try to define the Iranian nation solely based on the Persian language. This is a clear sign of the discrimination Turks have suffered in Iran, and even trampling on their rights is considered a sign of national unity.
Creating obstacles and prohibitions in choosing a name can have dire consequences for the family. Sometimes families wait for months and years in the courts in the struggle to receive a birth certificate with their chosen name, and in the meantime, the child without a birth certificate is also deprived of all services.
The ban on choosing Turkish names by Azerbaijani parents is imposed in two ways. First, the chosen names must be approved by the authorities and are often rejected. Second, in the rare cases where legal proceedings confirm some names, the written letters are not accepted in the original form. In other words, the chosen Turkish names are not recorded in their original pronunciation and writing, but they receive permission to issue a birth certificate with Farsi pronunciation. Among the most common of these Turkish names, which are written with Persian pronunciation, are the girls' names "Se'vil" (سِئویل) and "Se'vda" (سِئودا), which are allowed to be registered in the birth certificate as "Sevil" (سِویل) and "Sevda" (سِودا) because the sign hamza-e in Turkish is written in Turkish script which gives the sound of "e."
The ban on choosing Turkish names for children continues the widespread discrimination against non-Persian nationalities, including Turks, after establishing the modern nation-state in Iran. If national bias is applied to a population in the scope of national life, without a doubt, all areas of the national life of the ethnic group in question, including the economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental spheres, will be discriminated against and the ruling group will try to oppress the oppressed group by keeping them away from independence in these areas. Now, this discrimination can be in the form of banning the choice of a name in the mother tongue in the oppressed national groups, forced migration from their homeland to the central regions, or any other harm just because of their nationality.
The signatories of this petition want to remove official and legal obstacles from the way of registering Turkish names for children. Turkish families should be able to choose any name they want for their children freely.
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Province Number of signatures East Azerbaijan 0 West Azerbaijan 0 Ardabil 0 Isfahan 0 Alborz 0 Ilam 0 Bushehr 0 Tehran 0 Chahar Mahaal and Bakhtiari 0 South Khoresan 0 Razavi Khoresan 0 North Khoresan 0 Khuzestan 0 Zanjan 0 Samnan 0 Sistan and Baluchestan 0 Fars 0 Qazvin 0 Qom 0 Kurdistan 0 Kerman 0 Kermanshah 0 Kohgiluyehv And Boyer Ahmad 0 Golestan 0 Gilan 0 Lorestan 0 Mazandaran 0 Markazi 0 Hormozgan 0 Hamadan 0 Yazd 0 -
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