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 16 of 18

Erüstün
“superior man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Eryalçın
“unyielding man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Eryaman
“capable hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Eryavuz
“fearless hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Eryetiş
“come early, hasten”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Eryiğit
“brave lad”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Eryıldız
“man bright as a star”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Eryılmaz
“undaunted man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erzade
“son of a hero”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erzan
“suitable, fitting; cheap”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Esat
“most fortunate”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Eşay
“beautiful as the moon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ese
“short form of Ayşe: living, alive”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Esedullah
“lion of God”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Esen
“breeze, that which blows”
From Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur, Kyrgyz
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented

Esenbay
“healthy, comfortable lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Esenboğa
“healthy bull”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Esendağ
“safe mountain”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Esendal
“healthy branch”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Esendemir
“healthy iron”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Esenel
“safe land”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Esener
“healthy, comfortable man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Esenkal
“stay well”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Esenkul
“healthy servant”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 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.