Language guide

Turkish Names: Meanings, Origins & Traditions

Turkish names are recorded here in the modern Turkish Latin alphabet, which replaced the Arabic-based Ottoman script in 1928. Because Ottoman Turkish absorbed a large Arabic and Persian vocabulary, many familiar Turkish names, such as Elif or Emir, go back to Arabic or Persian words, while others, such as Arslan or Aynur, contain native Turkic elements. Each entry states which of these applies, based on the cited sources.

Türkçe

Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family

Published names: 7961
Scripts in our data: Latin
ISO 639-1: tr

Browse Turkish names

148 names · page 2 of 7

Deniz
“sea”
From Proto-Turkic · Turkish, Kyrgyz
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented
Denizmen
“sailor, seafarer”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Deren
“one who gathers; a rake”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Derin
“deep”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Derinöz
“deep essence, noble at heart”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Derman
“remedy, cure”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Derya
“sea”
From Persian · Turkish, Uyghur
Girl2 syllablesDocumented
Deryanur
“sea of light”
From Persian and Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Deste
“bunch, bundle”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Destegül
“bouquet of roses”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Devin
“movement; effort”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Devlet
“state”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented
Devlettin
“good fortune of the faith”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Devran
“the age; fortune”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Devrim
“revolution; reform”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented

Diba
“silk brocade”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Dicle
“the Tigris river”
From Persian (from Arabic) · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesDocumented
Diclehan
“Tigris lady”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Didar
“seeing, eye, beholding, meeting face to face”
From Persian · Turkish, Uyghur, Turkmen
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Didem
“my eye”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Dikbay
“upright lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Dikmen
“conical peak; highest point of a mountain; plateau”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Dila
“O heart”
From Persian · Turkish, Kazakh
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Dilan
“folk dance”
From Kurdish · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial

How Turkish names are written

Modern Turkish uses a 29-letter Latin alphabet introduced in 1928. Letters such as ç, ğ, ı, İ, ö, ş and ü matter for spelling: Gülnur and Gulnur are different spellings, and the dotless ı is a separate letter from i. Search on this site ignores these marks, but entries always show the documented spelling.

Where Turkish names come from

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

Turkic
4158
Arabic
2170
Persian
1209
Greek
42
Mongolic
39
Hebrew
28
French
14

Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.

Turkish names by meaning

Turkish belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, together with Azerbaijani and Turkmen. Related languages share many words, but a name is listed under a language only when it is documented there.

Other languages: Uyghur · Kazakh · Kyrgyz · Uzbek · Tatar · Bashkir · Tajik

References for this page

Wikipedia contributors. Turkic languages. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1377797900. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Wikipedia contributors. Turkish alphabet. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1381762599. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.