On March 20, a day before the celebration of the Novruz Bayram holiday, the president of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov, during a meeting with the country’s intelligentsia, appealed to his people and urged them to start using traditional Tajik first and last names, reported Regnum information agency. According to the news source, the President of Tajikistan contended that he has thought carefully about how to transform his own name according to Tajik traditions and said that from that day on he will be called Emomali Rakhmon, dropping the Russian-influenced “ov”.

Due to the still existing Soviet influence, many Tajiks have Russified last names and call their children by Russian first names.

This information was originally published March 21, 2007 (www.regnum.ru and www.lenta.ru) .