Language guide

Kazakh Names: Meanings, Origins & Traditions

Kazakh names are listed here in Kazakh Cyrillic, the alphabet used in Kazakhstan, together with any Latin spelling that our sources record. Many Kazakh names are compounds of native words, such as ай 'moon' or жан 'soul', and others come from Arabic and Persian. Kazakhstan has decided to move from Cyrillic to a Latin alphabet, a transition now scheduled to finish by 2031, so Latin spellings of the same name can still vary.

Қазақ тілі

Kipchak branch of the Turkic language family

Published names: 1555
Scripts in our data: Cyrillic, Latin
ISO 639-1: kk

Browse Kazakh names

48 names · page 2 of 2

Nurbol
“be light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Nurbolat
“light and steel”
From Persian and Classical Persian · Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Nurbolsyn
“may there be light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Nurdan
“from light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Nurdaulet
“light”
From Arabic · Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesDocumented
Nurgali
“light”
From Arabic · Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesDocumented
Nurgeldi
“light has come”
From Arabic and Turkic · Kazakh, Turkmen
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Nuriddin
“light of the faith”
From Arabic · Kazakh, Uzbek
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Nurjan
“light + soul”
From Arabic and Persian · Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Nurkhan
“khan of light”
From Persian and Kipchak · Kazakh
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nurlan
“be filled with light; become a handsome young man”
From Arabic and Turkic · Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Nurly
“luminous, radiant”
From Arabic and Turkic · Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Nurlybek
“radiant lord”
From Arabic and Turkic · Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Nursapa
“light of purity; pure son”
Uyghur, Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesDocumented
Nursultan
“light + sultan”
From Arabic · Kazakh, Kyrgyz
Boy3 syllablesDocumented

Nurtan
“luminous dawn”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Nurtas
“light, brightess + stone”
From Persian · Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Nurtileu
“light, shine, radiance + wish; want”
Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesLikely
Nurzat
“light of freedom”
Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Nurzhan
“soul of light”
From Arabic and Persian · Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Nurzhigit
“radiant young man”
From Persian and Proto-Turkic · Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Nussip
“share, portion, lot (of something); destiny, fate, lot”
From Arabic · Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Nygmet
“benefit”
From Arabic · Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Nyssan
“target, aim”
From Arabic · Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

How Kazakh names are written

Kazakh Cyrillic adds letters such as ә, ғ, қ, ң, ө, ұ, ү, һ and і to the Russian alphabet. A 2017 decree started a move to Latin script, later pushed back to 2031. Kazakhs in China, Iran and Afghanistan use an Arabic-based script. Latin forms on this site are shown only where a source records them.

Where Kazakh names come from

A name used in Kazakh is not automatically Kazakh in origin. Here is how the documented origins of the Kazakh names published so far break down (a name with elements from two languages counts under both):

Turkic
722
Arabic
557
Persian
448
Kipchak
65
Hebrew
26
Greek
17
Mongolic
15

Counted from 1555 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.

Kazakh names by meaning

Kazakh belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, together with Kyrgyz, Tatar and Bashkir. Related languages share many words, but a name is listed under a language only when it is documented there.

Other languages: Turkish · Uyghur · Uzbek · Azerbaijani · Turkmen · Tajik

References for this page

Wikipedia contributors. Kazakh alphabets. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1381145820. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Wikipedia contributors. Turkic languages. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1377797900. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.