Why do most Armenians usually end their last name with ian or yan?

by locosherman1

I'm Armenian myself and never really understood this.

EDIT: Thanks guys!

tigranater

It essentially means "descendant of" and is analogous to the English "-son" or the Serbo-Croat "-ić" patronymic suffixes.

So, a descendant of a man called Petros may have a surname called "Petrosyan" or "Petrosian".

Guzelian

Yeah, its like the scottish 'Mc', it means something akin to [descendent] 'of'.