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

422 names · page 15 of 18

Ertepınar
“early spring”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Ertim
“one of the three main tribes of the Pechenegs”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertin
“manly spirit”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ertingü
“extraordinary, unprecedented”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertok
“hero with a contented heart”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertop
“cannon man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertöre
“hero of tradition”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertuğ
“hero's standard”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertuğrul
“brave falcon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertün
“evening, early night”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertuna
“man of the Danube”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertunç
“man of bronze”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertunca
“man of bronze”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertuncay
“bronze-moon hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Ertunga
“brave ruler”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial

Erturan
“man of Turan”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertüre
“man of custom”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertürk
“brave Turk”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertut
“man who holds firm”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ertüze
“just, upright man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ertüzün
“courteous man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erülgen
“hero of Ülgen”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erün
“famous hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Erünal
“famous man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 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.