By their denotative and even more their connotative charge, large numbers of Turkish patronyms are repositories loaded with symbolism. To understand this, one must examine the discursive context in which the “Surname Law” of June 1934 was adopted. The Kemalist leaders imported into Turkey the European anthroponymic system and had the Anatolian population choose surnames from an onomastic stock selected according to etymological and semantic criteria. In its actual linguistic dimension, the alteration of anthroponyms in Turkey displays a particularly strong case of nationalization of cognition.