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

238 names · page 7 of 10

Nisa
“women”
From Ottoman Turkish and Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur
Girl2 syllablesDocumented
Nisan
“April”
From Hebrew · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nisanur
“April light”
From Turkish and Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Nisvan
“women”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Niyet
“intention”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl1 syllableEditorial
Nuhbe
“the best, the elite”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Nükhet
“fragrance”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Nur
“light”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Kazakh, Uzbek, Azerbaijani
Boy1 syllableDocumented
Nural
“take light”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nurâlem
“light of the universe”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Nuran
“luminous, bright”
Turkish, Uyghur, Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Nurbaki
“everlasting light”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nurbanu
“lady of light”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish, Kazakh
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Nurben
“light beauty mark”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nurbige
“lady of light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Nurcan
“light + soul”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented
Nurcihan
“light of the world”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nurçin
“gatherer of light”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Nurdağ
“mountain of light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nurdal
“branch of light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nurdan
“from light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Nurdanay
“moon of light”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Nurdane
“grain of light”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Nurdide
“light of the eye”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Girl3 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.