Origins of the Yozin Family Name
The Yozin name originated from a misinterpretation by New Zealand authorities when Milan Babić immigrated from the village of Podgora, Croatia in 1926.
Since Babić was a very common name, it was traditional to identify each son by tagging their father's name to the end of their surname. Joze was the name of Milan's father, and linguistic rules required the ‘e’ in Joze be substituted with ‘in’ to indicate the name as masculine. Resulting in the full name Milan Babić Jozin; translated to mean Milan Babić son of Joze.
When Milan immigrated to New Zealand at age 16, he could not speak or understand the English language. He wrote his name on immigration papers as he would in Podgora. However, he did not speak English and the way he wrote ‘J’ looked like a ‘Y,’ which led the authorities to mistake his name to be Milan Babić Yozin. They also dropped the diacritic mark above the letter 'c' as done in English translation. In addition, when immigration officials asked Milan to say his name, Milan pronounced his father's name "Yozin," and not Jozin, because the letter J in Croatian is pronounced exactly like the English Y.
Years later when Milan's children asked him why they had no Babić on their birth certificate, he explained how the name came about and that he preferred the name Yozin because it signified his father. Milan was happy with the mistake because it ensured his father's name is always pronounced correctly in English. He would not have liked people calling him Jozin as that was not how the name is pronounced.
