The Toptani family was the leading Albanian noble family in central Ottoman Albania at the beginning of the 20th century. The Toptani family 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, the head of the family at the beginning of the 20th century, 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.