Axhanela Family History

According to the word of mouth, or more specifically the seniour members of the  extended Axhanela family, the founder of this surname was a gentleman by the name of 'Nela', adressed by others with 'axha' (pronounced roughly as 'aja'), an Albanian word used as a polite address or to show respect for elderly or meritous members of the community. Hence,  his descendants took  his meritous title or 'axha' and his name ( 'Nela')  and combined  them into a surname.

Hence, Axhanela  = Axha+Nela.

Prior to that, as the oral history of the family  has it, Nela's surname was Canhasi, formed  a few hundred years ago, and the Canhasi's themselves are belived to have originated from the famous Albanian clan of Krasniqi.

The Axhanela family originally comes from the Kosovan town of Gjakova, but thesedays their descendatns reside in many different parts of the world, inlcuding Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they adopted the spelling to the slavonic one (Adžanela) in order to preserve the original Albanian pronunciation, and Australia, where the descendants  of the Bosnian  branch of the family (Adžanela) migrated in the past few of decades.

Traditionaly they have been educators, craftsmen and landowners.

Axhanela is an Albanian surname composed of two words - 'axha', an Albanian  word for (paternal) uncle, used amongst Albanians as a polite address or to adress elderly or the meritous members of the community, and  the personal name 'Nela'.

Hence, Axha + Nela = Axhanela.

In Albanian language the noun endings change depending on the article, for example, 'axhë' = indefinite article form, 'axha' = definite article  form; 'Nelë' = indefinite, 'Nela'=definite;  'Lekë' = indefinite , 'Leka' = definite article form,  etc.

Given that the most common form of this surname is 'Axhanela' (the indefinite form being 'Axhanelë'),  it is plausible to conclude that the name of the founder of this surname, "uncle Nela",  was  not 'Neli', the indefinite form of which is 'Nel' (like  that of  Albanian name 'Pal', for example) but 'Nela,  the indefinite form being 'Nelë.

There is in fact only one version of this surname which is not Axhanela , and that is 'Adžanel' ( borne by one of the few Bosnian-residing branches of the family), but the latter does not follow the typical Albanian  surname  structure, as it does not have a vowel  or  letter 'j'  at the end (some typical Albanina surnames include: Bardhi, Guri, Gjeka, Gjekaj, Gjoka, Gjokaj, Kryeziu, Lleshi, Mali, Malaj, etc.).

Fahri Axhanela, a cartoonist from Kosovo

Axhanela is an Albanian surname. In other words, the founders of  the surname were of Albanian ethincity, although  the surname today encompasses many different ethnicites. Some descendants of this family that moved  to Bosnia and Herzegovina almost a hundred years ago adopted the surname  to the slavonioc alphabet (Adžanela and Adžanelja) in order to  have their Bosnian countrymen propounce the surname as it should sound in Albanian (pronounced roughle as: 'aja:nelya').  Furhermore, the descendants of the Bosnian branch of the family that moved to  Australia  some decades ago  adopted the  Adžanela to the English aphabet, hence Adzanela.

As the descendants of the wide Axhanela family are found today among many different cultures, the spelling may vary depending on the coutry of residence. Hence, those  who have been residing  in the Slavonic speaking areas  have  adopted  the speling of their surname to slavonic alphabet in order to preserve the proper pronounciation of the surname (pronounced roughly as: aja: nelya), so their surname is written  like Adžanela and Adžanelja.

The descentands of those  Adžanela family members who moved to the English speaking world, where  the slavonic letter "ž" ( in "dž") does not exist, had their surname trasformed into  Adzanela, such as brothers Denis and Mirsad Adzanela, two of Brisbane's leading baristas, and the owners of the Capri Coffe/Bar,  to name a few.