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

479 names · page 9 of 20

Selcan
“impetuous, lively spirit”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Selcen
“variant of Selcan, impetuous, lively spirit”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Selçuk
“the Seljuk dynasty name”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Selçuker
“Seljuk man”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Selçukkan
“Seljuk lineage”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Seldağ
“torrent mountain”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Selekman
“generous, open-handed person”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Selekmen
“generous, open-handed person”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Seler
“surging like a flood”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Selgüç
“strong as a torrent”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Selhan
“torrent khan”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Selim
“safe, sound; healthy”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Azerbaijani
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Selışık
“flood of light”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Selışın
“torrent of rays”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Selkan
“of torrential lineage”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Selman
“safe, sound”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Selmi
“peaceful”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Selmin
“peace-loving”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Selnur
“flood of light”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Selok
“strong as a torrent, swift as an arrow”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Selvihan
“cypress khan”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Semagül
“rose of the sky”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Şemail
“character, manners; appearance”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Semavi
“heavenly, celestial”
From Arabic · 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.