Armenian Genealogy Forum

please I'm really curious to know what means my name JANJIKIAN, there's not a lot persons who have this name, I've met some and nobody knows what JANJIKIAN really means, a "janj" is a fly, is there something to see with, or with GENGIS KHAN? if someone could give some info, it will be great, thx

Hi.

I am from turkey maybe I can help you.

I think its janjikian is spelled cıncıkian in gaziantep city and it means glass maker or glazier.cıncık means glass ,ian or yan is son.

second probabbility is jan is spelled can in turkish and it mean heart,beloved,darling,life soul etc. jık is lovely. janjikian mean maybe belovedlovely son.

but first article is probably true.

if u tell me where your ancestry come from(city-town) I can help you more.

At the time our ancestors were still living, they were forced to speak and use the Turkish language for everything outside their homes, i.e. conducting business. Therefore, many of them used more than one surname...an Armenian name and a Turkish name. (This can make our genealogy much more difficult. Sometimes members of the same family ended up using different names. Those who survived to emigrate to different countries had to choose a name to put on their forms...some used the Turkish, some used the Armenian. Sometimes these were words which translated the same in both languages; sometimes one was a inter-generational family name and the other (usually Turkish) was their profession...probably the name by which they were known in the business world of Antep.) It was not customary to use surnames prior to WWI. Many people within the Armenian sector of the city were known by descriptive "nicknames" which translated to descriptions like "Garabed (Charles) squint eye," "Krikor (Gregory) with a limp." In the Armenian neighborhoods, they were known by these names, and people knew to whom it referred. My family had Haroutunians who ended up being called "Aritinian" or "Hopartinian". Some ended up with Dokmejian which was their profession (metal workers/implement makers). My great grandfather was, I think, a Nazarian, but the family name ended up being his profession "Kouyoumjian," which was a goldsmith/jeweler. On some of my grandmother's records she put Nazarian, on some she put Kouyoumjian. If I didn't know this, I'd think it was two different people. This sometimes makes tracing them VERY difficult. I didn't know the names of my grandfather's parents, particularly his mother. I finally found some records: he called her Mary Asaoglu (Turkish); his brother called her Mary Yesayian/Asayan.

I believe it has different meaning, depending on how you spell it and where you are from. It can have quite a few subtle differences in the overall meaning of this name.