Family name origins & meanings
- Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : from Hebrew chazan, an occupational name for a cantor in a synagogue.
- Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : from a Turkish loanword in eastern Slavic languages kazan ‘kettle’, ‘boiler’, ‘furnace’.
- Greek : reduced form of Kazandzis, occupational name for a maker of cauldrons or for someone who used a cauldron for the distillation of ouzo or raki, from Turkish kazancı ‘cauldron worker’ or ‘furnace worker’, from kazan ‘cauldron’ + the agent noun suffix -cı, or of a patronymic derivative of this, e.g. Kazandzakis, Kazandzoglou.
- The film director Elia Kazan (b. 1909) was of Greek origin, born in Asia Minor. His original family name was Kazandzoglou.