Mongolians

Recently I read in Information World Review that Mongolia has recently been persuading its citizens to adopt surnames, in order to make possible all manner of modern services for them – identity cards, credit cards etc. It will probably have some effects on their cataloguing system as it affects the way in which names are arranged in entries of catalogues. Serjee, a director of the State Central Library of Mongolia, has written a guide on how to choose a good family name. For example Gurragchaa, the only Mongolian who has gone to space with ex-USSR space rockets chose Cosmos as his surname. So far, too many Mongolians have been taking the easy option of choosing Borjigin –the clan name of Chengiz Khan. I remember my father told me that at the time of Reza Shah how officials of registry used to go to villages and choose surname for people according to what they were known for. Some of surnames that don’t look nice today have their roots in that procedures in that simple rural environment. For instance they chose Tas-kolah (bowl-hat) for somebody who used to put a bowl on his head like a hat. Then they didn't care so much about the meaning of the surname because everybody knew everybody in that village anyway, but now Tas-kolah would be having difficult times!!