Special Commission was set up at the Azerbaijan National Academy to determine a format of Azeri national last names, Trend News reports. “The Commission will study historical forms of last names, traditions of giving names in Azerbaijan and will propose Azeri national last name format,” Nizami Jafarov, Head of Azeri Permanent Parliamentary Commission on Culture, declared.

According to him, the studies will be completed in a couple of months and everyone regardless the age will be eligible of changing the endings of last name accordingly, this refers also the newborns. Legally, Azeri citizens may use new last names in juridical documents until the endings are replaced in official documents.

According to 1993 law on conformation of Azeri surnames with the official language, the citizens of Azerbaijan can change the “[ov]” and “[ev]” endings of their last names to “[ly]” (“[li]”, “[lu]”, “[lyu]”, depending on the word stem), “[zade]”, “[oglu]”, “[gyzy]” or remove the endings.

This process perfectly complies with the country’s Turk-Tatar habitants to gain their identity. Within the framework of this process alphabet in Azerbaijan is periodically changed too from Cyrillic into Latin and vice versa.