Mrkojevići's first group the "pravi Mrkojevići" formed the first nucleus, whose name eventually extended to the whole tribal region. In the defter of 1485 of the Sanjak of Scutari we have the first exact population records about Mrkojevići. It formed the nahiya of "Merkodlar" which is marked as one single settlement with 140 households. In comparison to the demographic data of southern Montenegro and northern Albania whose settlements rarely had more than 100 households at the time, this settlement, which was probable spread around smaller clusters, was one of the biggest settlements in the borderlands of the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian coastal cities. The register of the household heads of "pravi Mrkojevići" shows that a majority of their names and patronyms were of Orthodox Slavic origin and a minority were Catholic Albanians. In the centuries that followed archival records indicate that they assimilated in the Orthodox majority. Among the Albanians, names whose origin is traced to medieval tribes in the region like the Bukumiri can be found. Slavic anthroponymy in Mrkojevići was frequently followed by the Albanian suffix "-za". This phenomenon doesn't appear in such widespread form in any other area of Montenegro except for Crmnica to the north of Mrkojevići. It has been interpreted as the result of gradual, centuries-long adoption of Slavic culture by an Albanian-speaking population. At that time (1485), only one household had converted to Islam. Until 1571, the control of the region shifted frequently between Venice and the Ottomans.