Toptani family

The Toptani were a leading noble family in central Albania at the beginning of the 20th century. They belonged to a small number of noble families appointed by the Ottomans who used local chieftains to control Ottoman Albania more easily. Essad Pasha Toptani, a family patriarch, claimed that the family descended from the Thopia family. According to some sources, the name is derived from the word top, which means cannon, as the family owned a cannon at a time when artillery was rare.