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

376 names · page 9 of 16

Güdek
“aimed-for result, goal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Güder
“one who leads or directs; one who strives to realise their principles”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gülaçtı
“the rose opened”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gülan
“rose moment”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gulara
“rose-adorning”
From Persian · Turkish, Kazakh
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Gülayşe
“living rose”
From Persian and Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gülbay
“rose lord”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gülbek
“rose chief”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gülbeşeker
“a kind of rose sweet”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Gülbey
“rose lord”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gülbeyi
“lord of the rose”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gülbitti
“the rose is finished”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gülboy
“rose stature”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gülce
“little rose”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gülçimen
“rose meadow”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Gülçün
“rose gatherer”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Güldan
“flower vase”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gülderen
“rose gatherer”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Güldoğan
“rose falcon”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Güldüren
“one who delights others”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Güleç
“smiling; cheerful”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gülece
“rose queen”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Güleçer
“smiling man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gülefşan
“scattering roses”
From Persian · 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.