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It appears Hagop Vahram Çerçyan designed Atatürk’s official signature, Zaman says.

Dikran Çerçyan, the 90-year-old son of legendary teacher Hagop Vahram Cerçyan, notes that it was in fact his father -- who in his time taught many important people in Turkey -- who designed Atatürk’s signature, and what’s more, many people have known this fact for years. Çerçyan insists his father designed five different styles of signature for Atatürk and that one of them was chosen and used by Atatürk until the time of his death. Çerçyan goes on to note that one of the business cards designed by his father for Atatürk is still on display at the Atatürk Museum in Şişli.

He says his father designed the signature on a night in March and that during the first hours of the project, he even watched his father at work.  ‘’I don’t remember the exact day, it was probably the evening of the day when the Surname Law had been passed, and there was a policeman, a civil servant and a parliamentary worker who came to our door. My mother opened the door, and when she saw the policeman, she thought something had happened at school.

My father worked through the night all the way until the morning on that signature. I watched him the first hours he worked. He used up many, many pieces of paper, trying different signatures, but he wasn’t pleased by any of them. I was just a 13-year-old child, and after a while, I got bored and walked away. When I woke up in the morning, some officials came by our home and took the sample signature with them. For years and years, Atatürk used my father’s design as his signature, and we were so proud of this. My father even received a letter of thanks from Atatürk on this subject,” recalls Çerçyan.