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

872 names · page 10 of 37

Akbek
“pure lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akbel
“white mountain pass”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akbet
“fair face”
From Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Akbey
“honest, upright person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akbilge
“pure sage”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akboğa
“white bull”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akbora
“white storm”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akbörü
“white wolf”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akboy
“of pure lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akbudun
“of pure, well-known lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akbulut
“white cloud”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akburak
“white Buraq”
From Turkic and Arabic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akburç
“white tower”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akburçak
“a kind of vetch, a legume plant”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akça
“whitish; pure; coin”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial

Akçabay
“wealthy lord”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçael
“fair realm”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akçakan
“noble, pure, honest”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçakaya
“whitish rock”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Akçakıl
“white pebbles”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçakoca
“white-haired old man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Akçal
“whitish; elderly”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akçalı
“wealthy”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçam
“white pine, a North American pine”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 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.