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 134 of 156

Sümeyra
“little brunette”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Sümeyre
“fruit blossom; curled leaf”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Sümeyye
“high, lofty”
From Arabic · Turkish, Azerbaijani
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Sumru
“top, highest part of something”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Sun
“making; work; deed; command form of 'to offer'; gentle person”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Suna
“drake; tall and graceful”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Sunar
“one who offers respectfully”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Sunay
“offering moon”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Sünbüle
“spike of grain; the sign Virgo”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Sündüs
“fine silk brocade”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Sunullah
“power of God”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Suphiye
“of the dawn”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Şura
“short form of Aleksandr (Shura)”
From Russian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Süreyya
“the Pleiades (star cluster)”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Uzbek, Azerbaijani
Girl2 syllablesDocumented
Sürmeli
“with kohl-lined eyes”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Süsen
“iris”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Süveyda
“dark spot thought to lie in the heart; hidden sin in the heart”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Suyurgamış
“one who grants favors and shows mercy”
From Mongolic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Suyurgan
“generous; merciful”
From Mongolic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Suzan
“burning”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Suzidil
“fire of the heart”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Süzülay
“gliding moon”
Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Tabende
“shining, radiant”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Taç
“crown”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial

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.