# Family name followed by efendi



## m bell

Hi,

I know that when you want to show respect to someone, you say his or her first name followed by "bey" or "hanım", e.g. Ahmet bey, Zeyneb hanım. However, I think someone told me that if you want to be extra respectful, you say the family name followed by "efendi", e.g. Okur efendi (regardless of whether it's a man or woman). Is this true?

Thanks!


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## shafaq

Personally; it is the  first time I hear something like that. 
Actually we don't have a common practice to call/mention some one with her/his family name.


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## m bell

Really? That's weird! I thought that the most polite thing to do was to call a person using their family name followed by efendi (or maybe bey/hanım). I guess I'll have to stick to first name + bey/hanım.


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## spiraxo

m bell said:


> ...I guess I'll have to stick to first name + bey/hanım.


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## OnurUtkan

shafaq said:


> Personally; it is the  first time I hear something like that.
> Actually we don't have a common practice to call/mention some one with her/his family name.


Yes we do 
It's TRT's accent (If you aim to speak on national channel, you're able to speak with a very clear and educated Turkish)
it's so rare randomly hear someone on the street, speaks like on TRT.
But yes, we do have that beautiful grammatical trick ))
For man; "familyname" Bey,
For woman; "familyname" Hanım,

Btw, it's quite normal, not much turk left on TRT, known as speaks like previous speakers...


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## m bell

What is TRT?


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## Rallino

It's the Turkish BBC.


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## m bell

Oh, I see.

So the most common way of addressing of someone is to use his or her first name.
A more polite way is to use his or her first name followed by bey/hanım.
An even politer way is to use his or her family name followed by bey/hanım.
Am I correct?

I thought that the politest way was to use his or her family name followed by efendi, and I had been using this way for many years, but now I realize that it is not used in Turkish.


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## Rallino

I don't think anyone ever uses the family name + Bey/Hanım combo, either. You really only have one option. Go with the first name + Bey/Hanım.


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## Poseidonse

m bell said:


> Oh, I see.
> 
> So the most common way of addressing of someone is to use his or her first name.
> A more polite way is to use his or her first name followed by bey/hanım.
> An even politer way is to use his or her family name followed by bey/hanım.
> Am I correct?
> 
> I thought that the politest way was to use his or her family name followed by efendi, and I had been using this way for many years, but now I realize that it is not used in Turkish.


No,especially not. First one is correct,common way to adress someone as his first name, more polite one with directly her/his name+hanim/bey, more polite than second and really rare usage third one with name+bey/hanim/efendi, ex:Zeynep hanimefendi, Ali beyefendi. Same usage for both genders, and family name usage for kindship is not used in turkey,perhaps I didn’t encounter with any.It  seems more like british to me  .


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