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

3,744 names · page 31 of 156

Birgün
“one day”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Birhan
“sole ruler”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Biricik
“the only one, darling”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Birim
“my beloved one”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Biriz
“one trace”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Birnaz
“a touch of coyness”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Birnur
“a single light”
From Turkic and Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Birsan
“name of a valley in the Altai Mountains on the Mongolian side”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Birsel
“one torrent”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Birsen
“you are unique”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Birtan
“one dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Birtane
“the only one”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Birtek
“one of a kind, unique”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Bitengül
“growing rose”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Boğatay
“bull colt”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Böğürtlen
“blackberry, bramble”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Bolhan
“an ancient Turkic personal name”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Boncuk
“bead”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Börükan
“wolf blood”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Boy
“clan; stature”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Boysal
“of fine stature”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Bozat
“gray horse”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Bozca
“resembling boza, a fermented millet drink”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Bozçin
“female deer”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 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.