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After 1917, the Soviet regime required all citizens to have a fixed surname, a patronymic, and a given name in official records. Kazakh names were recorded in Russian orthography and morphology, replacing native endings with -ov/-ova or -ev/-eva, and patronymics with -ovich/-ovna. Soviet policy discouraged explicit references to ru (tribes) or traditional honorifics in surnames, viewing them as “feudal” remnants.

By the 1960s–1980s, nearly all Kazakh citizens had surnames in the Russian format, even if the root was Kazakh. Extended Islamic names (including father’s, grandfather’s, clan, and place of origin) and heroic/dynastic titles largely disappeared from public use, surviving only in literature and oral history. In rural areas and within families, traditional -uly, -kyzy, and -tegi forms were sometimes preserved in speech, but not in passports or legal documents.