Mehmed Fuad Köprülü (1890–1966) was the most important Turkish historian of the last century. The family name he bore related him to his so-called ancestor Mehmed Köprülü Pasha, an Ottoman dignitary who founded an illustrious lineage that—over the length of the imperial period—counted no less than six Grand Viziers. Mehmed Fuad Köprülü's name was officially ratified by the 1934 Republican Law that made it compulsory for every Turkish citizen to bear a family name. Surprisingly enough, a famous erudite, Ali Emiri, made harsh accusations against Köprülü, claiming he was in fact the descendant of the Kibleli family and called him a usurper for having borrowed his name from the Köprülü lineage with whom he had no direct relation. First, the paper examines the arguments and validity of the aforementioned accusations put forward by Ali Emiri in light of the anthroponomical Ottoman system. It specifically underlines to what extent proper names generally stemmed from multiple and variable logics of designation in ways that resembled family name changes from one generation to another. As a result, imperial dynasties are considered to have been willing neither to transmit nor defend their names against usurpers who might seek to falsify their own genealogies. Secondly, the paper emphasizes that Köprülü, as a family name, was associated neither with any kind of official nobility within the imperial political system nor within the context of Kemalist ideology. In doing so, the paper addresses the fact that, paradoxically, the name Köprülü became associated with a distinctive elite identity in Republican Turkey, a country shaped by an official meritocratic ideology.