Her father, Georges Vartan, was Bulgarian from a long lineage of Bulgarian descent; her grandfather (his father) went to work outside Bulgaria, and temporarily changed the original family surname to "Vartanian" while abroad, because suffix -ian means "son of" in that country. Her mother, Ilona (Mayer), was of Hungarian Jewish background; she was the daughter of Rudolf Mayer, a prominent architect, and Roza Passlouchny.