Serdar was a military rank in the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 and Montenegro

Montenegro

Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

. It means a head (ser) of place/land (dar

DAR

Dar may refer to:* Dar, Azerbaijan, a village* Dar es Salaam * Dar , a Kashmiri tribe in India and Pakistan* Dar, Russian title of Vladimir Nabokov's book The Gift...

). Serdars especially served at the borders of Ottoman Empire. They were responsible for security of lands. For example, Yakup Ağa who was the father of Barbaros from Yenice

Yenice

Yenice refers to various towns :In Turkey:*Yenice, Çanakkale, a district of Çanakkale Province in Turkey*Yenice, Karabük, a district of Karabük Province in Turkey...

.

Etymology

Serdar is a two-part name. "Ser" is a prefix meaning head or chief; "dar" is a suffix, it means patriot. "Ser" is a Persian word and "dar" is an Arabic word.

Uses

• Serdar is a popular male name in Turkey
  Turkey
  Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
  
  .
• Serdar-ı Ekrem or (Serdar-ı Azam) means the chief commander with the highest rank and thus it sometimes refers to the Sadrazam of the Ottoman Empire
  Ottoman Empire
  The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
  
  .
• Serdar is also used as a noun (especially to give a nostalgic feeling) with its original meaning (i.e. commander-in-chief) in Turkish
  Turkish language
  Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
  
  .

For example, "Ordunun serdarı yiğit savaşçılarına saldırı emrini verdi." (means "The commander-in-chief of the force ordered his brave fighters to attack."

• The word has been adapted in English with its original or related spellings, i.e. serdar, sardar, sirdar, all meaning commander-in-chief of an army. However, these words are not used in everyday terminology.

See also

• Serdar or Gyzylarbat is a city in Turkmenistan
  Turkmenistan
  Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...
  
  state.