Thaçi

Thaçi is an Albanian surname. It is written with the letter ç, which yields the “ch” sound in Albanian, and is often transliterated into English as Thaci. The name is found among Albanians in Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and in the Albanian diaspora. As with many Albanian surnames, Thaçi is believed to be of toponymic or patronymic origin, but precise etymology is not consistently documented.

The most widely known bearer of the surname is Hashim Thaçi (born 1968), a Kosovo Albanian politician and a key figure in the Kosovo Liberation Army during the 1990s. He later held major political offices in Kosovo, serving as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2014 and as President from 2016 until his resignation in 2020 after a war crimes indictment by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague. Thaçi's international profile is closely tied to Kosovo’s political development and its post-war institutions.

Beyond Hashim Thaçi, the surname is carried by other individuals in various professions within Albanian-speaking communities. In general, Thaçi is recognized as a common Albanian surname, reflecting the distribution of Albanian populations across the Balkans and in diaspora communities.