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.
- Published names
- 7961
- Scripts in our data
- Latin
- ISO 639-1
- tr
Browse Turkish names
3,744 names · page 44 of 156
- “queen rose”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “queen ruler”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “queen of light”From Turkic and Arabic · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “nimble; hardworking”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “most beautiful”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “jewel case”From French · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “grace, charming manner”From Arabic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “graceful heart”From Arabic and Persian · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “graceful rose”From Arabic and Persian · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “good warrior”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “scholar, writer, woman of letters”From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, AzerbaijaniGirl3 syllablesDocumented
- “high, lofty”From Old Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “most virtuous”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “of efe lineage”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “pale violet”From Ancient Greek · Turkish, AzerbaijaniBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “crown”From Persian · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “spell, charm”From Persian · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “increasing; augmenting”From Persian · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “the Aegean (Sea)”From Greek · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesDocumented
- “sovereign, dominant”From Greek · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesDocumented
- “Aegean light”From Turkic and Arabic · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “skilled; capable”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “believer, faithful person”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “sowing hand”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 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):
- Turkic4158
- Arabic2170
- Persian1209
- Greek42
- Mongolic39
- Hebrew28
- French14
Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.
Turkish names by meaning
Explore related languages
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.

