The signature of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkish army officer, founder of the Republic of Turkey was designed by Hagop Vahram Cherchiyan, a calligrapher of Armenian descent, Ermenihaber reports, referring to Turkish news agency Haberler.com.
The Turkish news agency published an article, presenting the story of the origin of Ataturk’s signature, making use of the memories of Hagop’s son Tigran.
The source reports that after the adoption of the Surname Law in Turkey in 1934 Mustafa Kemal took up a last name – Ataturk. Thus the Turkish parliament deputies made a decision to present a nice signature to the latter.
At that time, Ataturk's scribe proposed Cherchiyan to design a signature.
Hagop was a professor at the Robert College of Istanbul. In 1920 he had travelled to the United States to study at the Palmer Method school, specializing himself in system of handwriting.
Thus, Cherchyan designed five model signatures for the Turkish officer, who personally selected the fifth one depicted in the photo below.