It is unclear whether Lushington was intending to imply that the Hatay and Istanbul kittens had originally come from the Lake Van region, or was simply referring to the Turkish Van founding stock as "Van kittens" for short.
Called the Turkish cat when first given breed recognition in 1969,[REF] the name was changed in 1979 in the UK (1985 in the US) to Turkish Van[REF][REF] to better distance the breed from the Turkish Angora cat (originally called Angora[REF]) which had its origins around Ankara, in central Turkey.