The personal life of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has been the subject of numerous studies. Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey and served as its president from 1923 until his death on 10 November 1938. According to Turkish historian Kemal H. Karpat, Atatürk's recent bibliography included 7,010 different sources.Karpat, "The Personality of Atatürk", pp. 893–99. Atatürk's personal life has its controversies, ranging from where he was born to his correct full name. The details of his marriage have always been a subject of debate. His religious beliefs were discussed in Turkish political life as recently as the Republic Protests during the 2007 presidential election.

Mustafa Kemal's personality has been an important subject both for scholars and the general public. Much of substantial personal information about him comes from memoirs by his associates, who were at times his rivals, and friends. Some credible information originates from Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Kâzım Karabekir, Halide Edib Adıvar, Kılıç Ali, Falih Rıfkı Atay, Afet İnan, there is also secondary analysis by Patrick Balfour, the 3rd Baron Kinross, Andrew Mango and, most recently, Vamık D. Volkan and Norman Itzkowitz.

Name In Turkish tradition, names have additional honorary or memorial values besides their grammatical identification function. It is possible to translate a name from Turkish to other languages, but care should be given as names' form varies from one language to another. Atatürk had Mustafa as his name at birth. Mustafa ( – Muṣṭafā, "the chosen one"), an epithet of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, was a common name at that time. Young Mustafa studied at Salonica Military School, the military junior high school in Salonica (now Thessaloniki in modern Greece), where his mathematics teacher Captain Üsküplü Mustafa Sabri Bey gave him the additional name "Kemal" ("perfection") because of his student's academic excellence.Carl Cavanagh Hodge, Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800–1914, p. 393;

On 27 November 1911, Mustafa Kemal was promoted to the rank of Binbaşı, an Ottoman military rank denoting the commander of "a thousand soldiers," equivalent to the rank of Major in the modern Turkish army. Since, in Ottoman military ranks, "Bey" was a common title given to all ranks for Binbaşı and above, Mustafa Kemal Efendi, henceforth, was addressed as "Mustafa Kemal Bey". On 1 April 1916, Mustafa Kemal was promoted to the rank of Mirliva, equivalent to Major General today. In Ottoman military ranks, Pasha was a common title given to all ranks at and above Mirliva, and he was from then on addressed as "Mustafa Kemal Pasha" ().

Kemal Pasha, disgusted by the capitulations and concessions made by the Sultan to the Allies, and by the occupation of Constantinople (known as Istanbul in English since 1930) by the British, resigned from his post on 8 July 1919. He escaped from Istanbul by sea, passing through British Royal Navy patrols and landing on the Black Sea port city of Samsun, to organize the resistance against the Allied Powers' occupation of Anatolia. After his resignation, the Sublime Porte, the Ottoman imperial government, issued a warrant and later condemned him to death in absentia.

On 19 September 1921, the Turkish Grand National Assembly presented him with the title of Gazi, which denotes, a combat or wounded veteran, with the religious connotation of defeating non-Islamic forces, and bestowed upon him the rank of Marshal for his achievements during the War of Independence. Henceforth, he'd be addressed as "Gazi Mustafa Kemal".

On 21 June 1934, the Grand National Assembly recognized the need for registration and use of fixed hereditary surnames. The Surname Law was proposed and later put into force. On 24 November 1934, the Assembly enacted a special law to bestow on Mustafa Kemal the surname "Atatürk," which translates as "Father of the Turks,"Turkish Justice Department website, Article AtaturkProfile , smithsonianmag.com. Retrieved 28 March 2015. and established "Atatürk" as a unique surname.The law stated that the surname "Atatürk" may be used only by Mustafa Kemal, the first President of Turkey. The surname "Atatürk" can be divided in two parts, "Ata" and "Türk," whereby "Ata" means "father" or "ancestor", while Türk denotes simply "Turk," the "Turkish people." Thus, "Atatürk" best translates to "Father of Turkish People". The current common practice in Turkey as well as abroad is to refer to him as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

List of names and titles

Birth: Ali Rıza oğlu Mustafa 1890s: Mustafa Kemal 1900s: Mustafa Kemal Efendi 1911: Mustafa Kemal Bey 1916: Mustafa Kemal Paşa 1921: Gazi Mustafa Kemal Paşa 1934: Kemal Atatürk 1935: Kamâl Atatürk 1937: Kemal Atatürk

Time magazine says: "Man of Seven Names. This blond, blue-eyed, Bacchic roughneck had seven names before he died as Kamâl Atatürk.""TURKEY: Door to Dreamland". Time. 19 May 1941. However, Atatürk returned to the old spelling of Kemal from May 1937 and onwards.

Birth date

Due to differences between calendars of the period, Atatürk's precise birth date is not known. The Ottoman Empire recognized the Hijri calendar and the Rumi calendar. The Hijri was an Islamic calendar, used to mark the religious holidays. It was lunar, with years of 354 or 355 days. The Rumi was a civil calendar, adopted in 1839. It was solar, based on the Julian Calendar. Both counted time from the Hijra, the migration of Muhammad to Medina. Between the two calendars significant differences in elapsed time were present. Various reforms were made to reconcile them but typically there was always a difference.

Atatürk's birth date was recorded in the public records of Turkish Selanik as Anno Hegirae 1296 with no sign whether this was based on the Rumi or on the Hijri calendar. In view of this confusion Atatürk set his own birthday to coincide with the Turkish Independence Day, which he announced was 19 May 1919, the day of his arrival in Samsun, in a speech given in 1927. His identification with Independence Day implied his selection of the civil calendar, in which AH 1296 lasts from 13 March 1880 to 12 March 1881. The latter dates are in the Gregorian Calendar just adopted for the Republic by Atatürk for purposes of standardization (the Julian Calendar was rejected earlier). Atatürk therefore listed his own birthday in all documents official and unofficial as 19 May 1881.

Atatürk was told by his mother that he was born on a spring day, but his younger sister Makbule Atadan was told by others that he was born at night during a thunderstorm. Faik Reşit Unat received differing responses from Zübeyde Hanım's neighbors at Salonika. Some claimed that he was born on a spring day, but others stated on a winter day during either January or February. A story is that a teacher asked Atatürk his birth date, that he responded he did not know it, and that the teacher suggested 19 May. Then again, there are two ways to interpret this; the "Gregorian 19 May 1881" would imply Rumi 1 March 1297, which conflicts with the only recorded information, Rumi 1296. It is also possible to say "Rumi 19 May 1296", which implies a date in the Gregorian year 1880.

Some sources ignore the day and month altogether, and print his birth date as Gregorian 1880/81. Other claims are: Enver Behnan Şapolyo claimed that Atatürk was born on Gregorian 23 December 1880. Şevket Süreyya Aydemir claimed that he was born on Gregorian 4 January 1881. Muhtar Kumral, former head of the Mustafa Kemal Association, claimed that he was born on Gregorian 13 March 1881, and stated they used Makbule Atadan. A conversion from Gregorian to Rumi sets the day in Rumi to 1 March 1297. The validity of this claim is questionable, since the written record states Rumi 1296, not 1297. Tevfik Rüştü Aras claimed that Atatürk was born between 10 May and 20 May. He stated that this information was shared with Atatürk, and that Atatürk responded "Why not May 19."

Atatürk's last official identity document () does not include the day and month, but the year 1881 is visible. It is exhibited in the Atatürk Museum in Şişli. The Republic of Turkey announced 19 May 1881 officially to the public and diplomatically to other countries as his accepted birthday.

Ancestry The Ottoman Empire was not a nation state and the records were not kept based on ethnicity, but on religion. The rise of nationalism in Europe had extended to the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century and the Millet system began to degrade. Atatürk's parents and relatives used Turkish as their native language and were part of the Muslim millet.Mango, Andrew, Atatürk: the biography of the founder of modern Turkey, (Overlook TP, 2002), p. 27. According to information obtained from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Makbule Atadan, other family members, and childhood friends who knew Atatürk's family, Ali Rıza Efendi was originally from Thessaloniki, and his wife, Zübeyde Hanım, was born to a farming family in Langaza, west of Thessaloniki, in 1857. Zübeyde Hanım's origins are Yörüks who migrated to Rumelia. His father Ali Rıza Efendi is thought by some, such as Isaac Frederick Marcosson, Ernst Jäckh, Andrew Mango (among others) to have been of Slavic or Albanian origin;Mango, Atatürk, pp. 27–28Jackh, Ernest, The Rising Crescent, (Goemaere Press, 2007), [ p. 31, Turkish mother and Albanian father]Isaac Frederick Marcosson, Turbulent Years, Ayer Publishing, 1969, [ p. 144.]Richmond, Yale, From Da to Yes: understanding the East Europeans, (Intercultural Press Inc., 1995), p. 212. according to Falih Rıfkı Atay, Vamık D. Volkan and Norman Itzkowitz (the latter two citing Atay), Ali Rıza's ancestors were Turks, ultimately descending from Söke in Aydın Province.Falih Rıfkı Atay, Çankaya: Atatürk'ün doğumundan ölümüne kadar, İstanbul: Betaş, 1984, p. 17. Vamık D. Volkan & Norman Itzkowitz, Ölümsüz Atatürk (Immortal Atatürk), Bağlam Yayınları, 1998, , p. 37, dipnote no. 6 (Atay, 1980, s. 17) Evidence about the Albanian ancestry of Ali Rıza is that Cemil Bozok, a distant cousin of Atatürk and later his aide, had an Albanian grandfather, who claimed that he was related to both of Atatürk's parents. His mother Zübeyde was born to a Turkish family, and according to Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, she was Yörük, a descendant of the Turkic nomads.Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Tek Adam: Mustafa Kemal, Birinci Cilt (1st vol.): 1881–1919, 14th ed., Remzi Kitabevi, 1997; , p. 31.

However, there are also some suggestions about his partial Slavic origin, such as Macedonian Torbeši or Muslim Bulgarians,"Whether, like most Macedonians, he had about him a touch of the hybrid —perhaps of the Slav or Albanian—can only be a matter for surmise." Atatürk: a biography of Mustafa Kemal, father of modern Turkey, by Baron Patrick Balfour Kinross, Quill/Morrow, 1992; , p. 8. as well as for an alleged Jewish Dönme ancestry.Gershom Scholem, "Doenmeh", Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed.; Volume 5: Coh-Doz, Macmillan Reference USA, Thomson Gale, 2007, , p. 732.

Allegation of Jewish (Dönme) ancestry