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

444 names · page 4 of 19

Karacakurt
“dark wolf”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karacan
“dark-featured beloved”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karaçar
“evil spirits”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Karaçay
“a Turkic people”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karaçelik
“dark steel”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karadağ
“black mountain”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Karademir
“dark iron”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karadeniz
“Black Sea”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Karadoğan
“dark falcon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karaduman
“dark mist”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karaer
“dark-complexioned brave man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Karahan
“title of khans”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karakalpak
“a Turkic people of Central Asia”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karakan
“a mountain tree”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karakaş
“one with thick dark eyebrows”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Karakaya
“black rock”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Karakoç
“black ram”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karakoca
“aged man whose hair has not greyed; stunted old tree”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karakoyun
“black sheep”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karakucak
“bear hug; the oldest Turkish wrestling style”
Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Karakurt
“black wolf”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karakuş
“eagle; the planet Jupiter”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karaman
“dark-skinned person; a south-west wind”
From Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Karamuk
“thorny wild shrub with small grape-like berries”
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.