The Ohanian surname is Armenian, and it means “son of Ohan”. Ohan is the short, warm, everyday form of Hovhannes, which is simply the Armenian way of saying John. Every Ohanian is, at root, a Johnson.
What Does the Surname Ohanian Mean?
Ohanian means “son of Ohan” or “descendant of Ohan”. Ohan is an Armenian pet form of the given name Hovhannes, the Armenian equivalent of John, and -ian is the standard Armenian patronymic suffix. The name therefore reads as “of the family of John”.
The chain behind it is one of the oldest in Europe and the Near East. Hovhannes came into Armenian from the Greek Ioannes, which the early church carried out of Palestine. Ioannes was itself a rendering of the Hebrew Yochanan, meaning “God is gracious” or, more literally, “Yahweh has shown favour”.
Armenians shortened Hovhannes in speech, as speakers of every language shorten a name they use constantly. Ohannes lost its first syllable, Ohan lost its last, and by the time surnames hardened into fixed inherited labels the short form was firmly attached to families as well as to men.
In the Armenian alphabet the name is written Օհանյան in the reformed Eastern spelling used in the Republic of Armenia, and Օհանեան in the classical orthography still used by Western Armenian communities in the diaspora. Both are the same name.
Where the Ohanian Name Comes From
Ohanian comes from the Armenian highlands, the plateau spanning what is now the Republic of Armenia, eastern Turkey and parts of Iran and Georgia. It is not tied to one town or noble house. It is a Christian given name that became a family name wherever Armenians lived.
A name made by the church
Armenia adopted Christianity as a state religion in the early fourth century, earlier than anywhere else, and biblical given names spread accordingly. John was among the most popular of them, honoured through John the Baptist and John the Evangelist alike. Centuries of that popularity are why so many Armenian families ended up carrying a version of it.
The Ottoman west and the Russian east
By the nineteenth century Armenians were split between two empires. Those in the Ottoman east, in Van, Kharpert, Sivas and Constantinople, spoke Western Armenian and wrote their names with the classical -ean ending, which reaches English as -ian. Those under Russian rule around Yerevan and Tiflis spoke Eastern Armenian and later standardised on -yan.
That split explains most of the spelling confusion in Armenian surnames today, and we cover its mechanics in more detail on the Grigoryan and Karapetyan pages.
Persia and the merchant road
A third branch matters for this name in particular. Shah Abbas I forcibly resettled thousands of Armenians in Isfahan in 1604 and 1605, creating the quarter of New Julfa, which became one of the great merchant communities of the early modern world. Armenian names there passed through Persian and Russian pronunciation, which is where the forms Ovanesyan, Oganesyan and Avanesyan come from.
Spelling Variants and Related Names
Ohanian is one of a large cluster of Armenian surnames all built on the name John. The fuller and far commoner form in Armenia today is Hovhannisyan, which is the single most frequent surname in the country, the Armenian Johnson.
The main variants you will meet in records are Ohanyan, Ohanesian, Ohannessian, Ohanessian, Hovanesian, Hovhannesian, Hovannisian, Ovanesyan, Oganesyan and Oganessian, along with the Persian and Russian influenced Avanesyan and Avanesov. The prefixed form Ter-Hovhannisyan carries an extra piece of information: Ter marks descent from a married Armenian Apostolic priest.
All of them survive in American records. The 2010 US Census counted 1,210 Ohanians, 637 Hovhannisyans, 397 Ohanesians, 254 Ohannessians, 243 Ohanyans, 209 Avanesyans and 162 Hovanesians. Read together, they are one family of names, scattered by immigration clerks and by which empire an ancestor happened to leave from.
Ohanian’s cousins in other languages
John may be the most productive surname-generating given name in history, and Ohanian is one of its children. So is Ivanov, from the Russian and Bulgarian Ivan. So is Janssen, from the Dutch Jan, and Hansen, from the Scandinavian Hans, and Jones, from the Welsh John.
Five different languages, five different patronymic systems, one name underneath. A first-century Galilean became a surname in Yerevan, Moscow, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Cardiff, and the families carrying those names have no idea they are cousins in the only sense a name can make people cousins.
The Ohanians in America
Most American Ohanians descend from Western Armenians who fled the Ottoman Empire between the 1890s and the 1920s, above all during the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the years around it. They arrived as survivors, often as orphans, often as the last of a village.
The earliest concentration formed in eastern Massachusetts, where the Hood Rubber Company and the mills drew Armenian labour from the 1890s onwards. That community is still there, which is why Watertown and neighbouring Belmont remain the heart of Armenian New England, with churches, schools and bakeries that have outlasted the factories that brought the first families over.
California took the larger share. Farming families settled the San Joaquin Valley around Fresno, and later generations moved south into Los Angeles County. Today the densest Armenian American communities are in Glendale, with substantial populations in Encino and Montebello, home of the Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument.
Later arrivals thickened the same neighbourhoods. Armenians left Lebanon during its civil war, left Iran after 1979, and left Armenia in large numbers after the 1988 Spitak earthquake and the collapse of the Soviet Union. An American Ohanian family may have arrived in 1921, 1979 or 1994, and the difference shows in the spelling.
In the 2010 Census, 93.88 per cent of Ohanians self-identified as white, 2.89 per cent as two or more races and 2.73 per cent as Hispanic. Those are self-identification proportions recorded on a form, not a measure of ancestry, and the near-uniform figure mostly reflects how the American racial categories have historically classified people from the Caucasus and the Near East.
Notable People Named Ohanian
Alexis Ohanian (born 1983) is the American internet entrepreneur who co-founded Reddit in 2005 with Steve Huffman, and has since worked as an investor and in women’s sport ownership. His father’s family is Armenian American.
Ovanes Ohanian (1896 to 1960) was an Armenian Iranian filmmaker who founded Iran’s first film school in Tehran in 1925 and directed Abi and Rabi in 1930, the first Iranian feature film. The only print was destroyed in a cinema fire.
Armen Ohanian (about 1887 to 1976) was a dancer, actress and writer born Sophia Pirbudaghian in Shamakhi. She performed across Europe in the 1910s and 1920s, helped establish theatre in Persia, wrote the memoir The Dancer of Shamakha, and died in Mexico City.
Mike Connors (1925 to 2017), born Krekor Ohanian in Fresno to Armenian immigrant parents, was the American actor who starred as the private detective in the television series Mannix from 1967 to 1975.
Melik Ohanian (born 1969) is a French contemporary artist of Armenian descent, known for film and installation work, and a recipient of the Marcel Duchamp Prize.
Seyran Ohanyan (born 1962) is an Armenian general and politician who served as Minister of Defence of Armenia from 2008 to 2016.
How Common Is Ohanian Today?
Ohanian is an uncommon American surname, ranked 21,568th in the 2010 US Census with 1,210 bearers. It is far outnumbered in Armenia itself by the fuller form Hovhannisyan, which is the country’s most common surname.
| US rank (2010 Census) | #21568 |
|---|---|
| Americans with the name | 1,210 |
| Origin | Armenian |
| Meaning | Son of Ohan, a short form of Hovhannes (John) |
Outside the United States the name is found in France, Iran, Lebanon, Argentina, Canada and the post-Soviet states, following the routes the Armenian diaspora took after 1915.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the surname Ohanian mean?
Ohanian means “son of Ohan”. Ohan is a short form of Hovhannes, the Armenian form of John, which descends through Greek Ioannes from the Hebrew Yochanan, “God is gracious”. The -ian ending is the Armenian patronymic suffix.
Is Ohanian Armenian or Persian?
Ohanian is Armenian. The confusion arises because large Armenian communities lived in Iran for centuries, particularly at New Julfa in Isfahan, so many Ohanians have Iranian connections. The name itself is Armenian in every element.
Where does the Ohanian family come from?
There is no single Ohanian family or ancestral village. The name arose independently wherever an Armenian man called Ohan had descendants, across the Armenian highlands, the Ottoman east, the Caucasus and Iran.
How common is the surname Ohanian?
In the United States it ranked 21,568th in 2010, with 1,210 bearers, and it is heavily concentrated in California. Counting its variants, including Hovhannisyan, Ohanyan and Ohanesian, the wider family of names is considerably larger.
Is there an Ohanian family crest or coat of arms?
No. In heraldic tradition arms are granted to individuals and their direct descendants, never to everyone who happens to share a surname, and Armenian families were not part of the western heraldic system at all. Any site selling you an Ohanian crest is selling a decoration, not a lineage.
Is Ohanian the same name as Hovhannisyan?
Yes, in origin. Both mean “son of John”, one built on the short form Ohan and the other on the full form Hovhannes. Ohanian is more typical of Western Armenian and diaspora families, Hovhannisyan of the Republic of Armenia.
If your family carries the Ohanian name, its route from the Armenian highlands to America is traceable. Atlas of Home can follow it from a village in Ottoman Anatolia or the Caucasus to wherever your family landed, and to wherever you are now.