Balabanov (Balaban, Balabanoff, Ballabon, etc.) and their derivatives (-ovs, -ich, etc.) are common last names in

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Notable people with the surname include: *

Aleksei Balabanov Aleksei Oktyabrinovich Balabanov (; 25 February 1959 – 18 May 2013) was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and Film producer, producer, a member of European Film Academy. He started from creating mostly arthouse pictures and music videos ...

(1959-2013), Russian filmmaker * Andrey Balabanov, Soviet-born Ukrainian sprint canoer *

Angelica Balabanov Angelica Balabanoff (or Balabanov, Balabanova; – ''Anzhelika Balabanova''; 4 August 1878 – 25 November 1965) was a Russian-Italian communist and social democratic activist of Jewish origin. She served as secretary of the Comintern fr ...

(1878-1965), Russian-Italian Marxist revolutionary, Comintern secretary in 1919-1921 *

Hanna Balabanova Hanna Balabanova (, born 10 December 1969) is a Ukrainian sprint canoeist who competed from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s (decade). Competing in three Summer Olympics, she won a bronze medal in the K-4 500 m event at Athens in 2004. ...

(born 1969), Ukrainian sprint canoer *

Kostantyn Balabanov Kostyantyn Oleksiyovych Balabanov (; born 13 August 1982) is a Ukrainian former football player and manager. Career Balabanov was born in Kiliya, at the time in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (today in the Odesa Oblast of southern Ukra ...

(born 1982), Ukrainian football player * Vasile Balabanov (1873-1947), provincial administrator of Imperial Russia

Origins of the name

Possible origins of the name according to Tudor Balabanov: :1. in the Kazakh Mountains there is an eagle called Balaban from which the name may be derived. :2. One of the recipients of this name may have been the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

s that around 4000 years ago started naming the leading three soldiers of a battalion, namely: the one with the flag, those with a drum, and the one with a blow instrument - the Balabans. :3. The

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Turkey * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic lang ...

may have taken over this name and given it to the relatively tall non-Muslim men from their territories.

Origins of the name

See also