Kazan Family History

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 kazanci ‘cauldron worker’ or ‘furnace worker’, from kazan ‘cauldron’ + the agent noun suffix -ci, or of a patronymic derivative of this, e.g. Kazandzakis, Kazandzoglou.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press