It was told that my great grandfather Hanna Dib Lattouf, and his children, came from Istanbul, Turkey. In fact, my grandfather khoury Hanna Dib , used to say to my newly-wed mother, in Turkish, " Turksheh Beleyrum, Arabshe Beleyrum " . During my latest trips to Istanbul in 1994, I learned that that translated to " I speak Turkish, and Arabic ".

The name Dib is an Arabic (possibly Aramaic or Pheonecian) for WOLF. The Wolf in Lebanese folklore stands for courage and strength. The name can also be written as Deeb which is the more correct English phonetic rendering of the Lebanese name. However, since Lebanon was under the French Mandate (colonialization) between World War I and World War II, the vital records of Lebanon, in as far as foreign documents such as passports were concerned, used the French phonetic rendering of Dib. Of the many Dibs who obtained passports or other documents for foreign use, some of them chose the Dib spelling, others the Deeb spelling. The Dip spelling also was used by our cousins who emigrated to Mexico in the late 1800's.

During my trips to Istanbul, I realized that many Arabic names such as Ayub, and Galib, where written and pronounced Eyup, and Galip. When I investigated that, I was told that these were the same Ayub, and Galib's Arabic names, but that in Turkish, being a very soft spoken language, and it was common to replace the B at the end of the name , with a P. Therefore Dib in Arabic became Dip in Turkish.

In Turkey, up till Ataturk time, family names were not used. Instead, each person held his name, plus his father's name, plus, may be, his grand father's names. Therefore, someone by the name of Elias Dib may not necessarily be of the Dib family, rather it could be that his father/grandfather's name was Dib. There have been exceptions to this rule, and some deeply rooted families have kept and used family names.

It was not until circa 1920, that the Turkish President Ataturk ordered Turkish citizens to assume family names. This did not effect the Dip's who left Turkey before that time.

The religion of the Dip family of Turkey is not a diffrentiator, since in the past, and under the Moslem Turkish rule, many Dibs could have changed their sect to Moslem for fear of opression.

Lord Kinross, in his book titled "The Ottoman Centuries" ( Morrow Quill Paperbacks, New York, 1977 ), describes the Turkish- born cavalreymen called the Sipahis ( or Sipahioglu in Turkish ). These sipahis were authorized to collect taxes from the peasants in return for the Sipahis military service and those of their own horsemen. These Siphais were alloted lands and fiefs, and formed the bulk of the Turkish army, at the times of Sultan Mehmed the Conquerer in the mid 1400's. But the army's main strength layed with the Janissaries, the infantry Christian-born slave force. As per this Turkish Moussa Dip I met in Istanbul, the Sipahis revolted in the mid 1800's against the Sultan, and were dispersed and sent to exile. His grandfather was one of those Sipahioglu's who were exiled to the costal area of the Black Sea. This may shed some lights on the Christian Dip family prosperity in Turkey, and their subsequent retreat from Turkey, but further research is needed in this area.

I am not even sure of my great grandfather Hanna Dib Lattouf's religious sect in Turkey, since in Istanbul, Maronites were not known as such. There were, in fact, what the Turks called Syrianns ( Syriacs ) .

It is a known fact that, because of Moslem persecution of Christians in Turkey, many famous families in Lebanon came from Turkey, these include : Gemayel, Pharaon, Dib , Kassargi, and Da'ouk. In the "Hakleh History" book, it is also said that the Sabanji family is a branch of the Maronite Dib Mhanna family. It may be worth noting that the Sabanji family in Turkey today, is one of the richest families in the entire state of Turkey, owning many large banks, home appliance manufacturing, and car dealerships.

Designed and Produced by : Raymond Maurice K. H. Dib - New York, NY, USA
E-MAIL Inquiries to RDib@yahoo.com

Copyright © 1998 . Raymond Maurice K. H. Dib - New York . All Rights Reserved