he word Kecman is most likely of Slav/Russian/Cossack origin, or a Serbian version of the Germanic words Ketzer or Keck man. Ketzer in German means heretic, false believer... Also, keck in German could mean confident or assured, which combined with the second part of the surname means confident or assured person. This is what linguists say: The transformation of exclamations and calls into nouns and verbs is a universal occurrence - in other words it happens in most languages. The exclamation ‘KEC’ is used when herding goats and is possibly related to the Albanian word kets (goat), Turkish word keci, Hungarian kecke etc. A similar thing can be said of the Serbian exclamation ‘oje’ which is shouted at oxen and may be related to the German word ‘ochs’, or the English ‘ox’. Svetozar Gligorijevic contends that the exclamation kec belongs to the Balkan cattle-related lexicon, but it would appear that it occurs outside the Balkans too - recently the surname Kec was found in Polesie in Ukraine. The Kecman surname has been mentioned in the following places in Bosnia: Bosanska Krupa, Veliki Balić, Banjani, Dobroselo, Mrazovina (originally from Bjelajsko Polje), Počenik, Lohovo, Beglušci, Dvor, Trnjinić Brijeg, Trubar, Šinovljani, Bjelajsko Polje, Suvaja, Petrovac (from Drinić), Bukovača, Drinić (came from Krnja Jela in 1907), Bravsko, Kapljuvo, Janjilimi, Rajnovci next to Kulen Vakuf, and in Prijedor. The surname is identical to the first-name Kecman which has apparently never appeared amongst the Serbs.