Hale, Jale and Lale

According to TurkStat statistics, the most preferred baby girl names recently are Zeynep, Elif and Defne. Other girls' names after the top three are Asel, Azra, Eylül, Duru, Ebrar, Asya, Öykü and Ecrin.

These names have replaced Fatma, Ayşe, Şerife, Hanife, Hanife, Hayriye, Havva and Zeliha, which were preferred at the beginning of the Republican era, that is, in 1923.

Isn't there a big change in preferences?

Actually, there are many factors affecting people's preferences, the most important of which is probably the winds of change across the country.

But name preferences can vary even according to cities. The inhabitants of each city may have their own preferred names.

Sometimes a popular artist, a famous person, a movie or TV series character, maybe a certain trend, all these can play a leading role in name preferences from time to time.

(By the way, I respectfully remember Deniz Gezmiş, who inspired the choice of my name).

While once upon a time society chose names based on religious sensitivities, or perhaps as a tradition, we gave our children the names of our grandmothers and grandfathers, today we can choose names in a brand new style by following fashion.

Sometimes there are even those who come up with a brand new name inspired by the names of their parents, even if it makes no sense.

These days, however, society is polarized on this issue too. While one part of the society prefers to choose names with religious sensitivities as in the old times, another part has started to prefer old Turkish names. Or some families prefer to give their children names that no one else has, instead of the most preferred names. As I said, if the fashion is sometimes to give names that are rarely known, some people follow the fashion anyway.

Yes, preferences have constantly changed according to the spirit of the times.

The most preferred names of the 1950s were Yüksel, Naime, Aliye, Gülşen, Gülseren, Kamile, Elife, Kezban, Gönül and Semiha.

In the 1960s, Sati, Zahide, Tülay, Şükriye, Rabia, Cennet, Esma, Bedriye, Nimet and Ayfer were very popular.

Popular girl names in the 1970s were Arzu, Arife, Aysun, Birsen, Canan, Feride, Güllü, Gülşen.

In the 1980s, the preferred girls' names changed again. While Hülya, Dilek, Filiz, Yasemin, Songül, Özlem, Arzu and Aynur were the preferred names, the names preferred in the 1990s started to change once again.

While Merve was the most popular name in the 1990s, Fatma, Büşra, Elif and Kübra were the other names in the top five.

While some of these names quickly fell out of favor, others are still pushing the top of the rankings.

Hale, Jale and Lale, the title of this article, are popular society names from the Yeşilçam movies of the 70s. Although they didn't make the list of the most popular names, they are names we all know very well. Ajda and Müjgan can even be added to these.

I think we misunderstood westernization with the Republic, and even before that, with Tanzimat. As a country, we understood westernization to mean that we should also change our culture.

Throughout our history, we have always turned our faces towards the west, but especially after the Tanzimat, there is a large group of people who have been influenced by westernizing movements.

In fact, this habit of misunderstanding is not only about the West. Once upon a time, with the acceptance of Islam, we turned our faces towards the Muslim world. Many of our habits, including our names, that is, our culture, were transformed then as well.

But after the Tanzimat, I can say that those who were caught up in the winds of change to the degree of admiration for the West caused a cultural erosion.

I don't think Atatürk was a western admirer. Yes, he was also influenced by western civilizations under the influence of the Tanzimat winds. His youth and the period in which he grew up, as well as the education he received and the western sources he read influenced his self-education. But this influence did not lead him to a level of admiration. On the contrary, he tried very hard to emphasize Turkish culture with the nationalist movements of the day. However, he brought this desire to light in a balanced way.  

There is a reason for this that we do not feel very much at the moment. Atatürk was an imperial intellectual. The way to keep the different cultures within the empire together is to develop discourses that everyone can accept.

I think this is the reason for the "Happy to be a Turk!" point of view.

On the other hand, he also sought a solution to the backwardness caused by centuries of religious discourse. The translation of the Qur'an into Turkish was done for this purpose. People were asked to pray by understanding the prayers and knowing what they were saying.

But for some reason this request was not accepted by the conservative masses. When the reactions to the recitation of the call to prayer in Turkish turned into a mass reaction after he passed away, the Democrat Party in 1950 backed away from Atatürk's wish and the revolution that had been attempted ended when the call to prayer began to be recited in Arabic again.

This is the real reason for today's secret conflict within society and the hatred that some circles have accumulated in those days and in Atatürk's person.

We have strayed a bit from our topic, but I could not help but mention these historical facts that are indirectly related to the subject.

Yes, as a society, it seems to me that we are constantly drifting in one direction for some reason. We are constantly under the influence of a culture that we think is better than ours.

We are not very aware of it, but with Islam, we have actually been influenced by Persian culture instead of Arab culture. There are more Persian words in our language than Arabic words. Not only words, but also conjunctions and sentence structures have undergone a certain change.

Then the influence of western culture, the invasion of French words in the language.

Even the names we give to our children have been and still are affected by this drift.

However, our essence, that is, our Turkish names are very beautiful.

Alçin, Almila, Asena, Ayana, Barçın, Birçe, Çağla, Deniz, Gensu, Günçe, İynem, Özge, Pelin, Selin, Tilbe, Tutsu, Yıldız, Yeliz .... These are old Turkish names. We have also derived new and very beautiful names in Turkish.

I think we should put a stop to the drift of our culture.

I am neither in favor of Hale, Jale, Lale, nor Ayşe, Fatma, Hayriye.

We must return to our essence. I think we can live our essence by adapting to the conditions of the modern world.

Look, I'm in a bad mood again. I'd better turn on the folk songs that Atatürk loved so that I can have a good time with folk songs.

   Geese taking off from Mayadağ/

   White girls in high heels/

   My beloved's heart aches/

   I can't be amused, I can't be deceived

   I can't stay in these places/

   Vardar Plain, Vardar Plain

   I couldn't earn the money of my homeland/

   Vardar Plain, Vardar Plain

   I couldn't earn raki money/

Love and regards to everyone from Moscow