Hovhaness's father, Haroutioun Hovanes Chakmakjian, was born in 1878, into a farming family in Adana, in the former Armenia (now part of Turkey). Due to the Ottoman massacres he headed to France (being a French teacher) and then to America. After graduating from Harvard he taught Chemistry and Biochemistry at Tufts College, Boston. Hovhanes's strict father disapproved of his son's composing, but Hovhaness – an only child – fondly remembered their many treks together in the hills and mountains of New Hampshire.

Hovhaness's mother, Madeleine Scott, was of Scottish-English ancestry and a Wellesley College graduate. She was somewhat musical and played Baptist hymns, which may have been Hovhaness's earliest musical experiences. She decided her son's surname should be the more manageable "Vaness", though shortly after her untimely death (1930) it was lengthened to "Hovaness" and finally "Hovhaness".

Photographer unknown.