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.
- Published names
- 7961
- Scripts in our data
- Latin
- ISO 639-1
- tr
Browse Turkish names
115 names · page 1 of 5
- “Abraham (name of the patriarch and prophet)”From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Kazakh, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Tatar, BashkirBoy3 syllablesDocumented
- “heart-opener”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “person of valuable inner worth”TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “sacred, holy”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “blessed; title of Old Turkic rulers”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “sower of seed, farmer”From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, TatarBoy2 syllablesDocumented
- “sincerity”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “kindness, excellence”From Arabic · Turkish, Tatar, BashkirBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “loyal friends; members of a brotherhood”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “reviving, revival”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “honour, respect; honouring”From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Uzbek, AzerbaijaniBoy2 syllablesDocumented
- “relating to honouring and hospitality; lover of hospitality”From Arabic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “took the land”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “has taken the land”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “lion of the land”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “leopard of the realm”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “head of a land; ruler”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “lord of the realm”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “lord of the realm”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “lord of the land”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “bull of the land”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “soul of the realm”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “fellow countryman”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “glimmer; twilight”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 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):
- Turkic4158
- Arabic2170
- Persian1209
- Greek42
- Mongolic39
- Hebrew28
- French14
Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.
Turkish names by meaning
Explore related languages
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.

