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

613 names · page 6 of 26

Tansu
“water of the dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented
Tantuğ
“dawn standard”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Tantürk
“Turk who lights up the dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Tanuğur
“lucky dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Tanver
“give dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Tanyel
“dawn + wind”
From Turkic and Proto-Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesLikely
Tanyeli
“dawn breeze”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Tanyer
“dawn place”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Tanyeri
“place where dawn glows”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Tanyıldız
“morning star”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Tanyol
“dawn road”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Tanyolaç
“one who opens a path to the light”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Tanyolu
“road of dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Tanyu
“variant of Tanju, an ancient steppe ruler's title”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Tanyücel
“rise high like dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial

Tanyüz
“dawn-faced”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Tanzer
“golden dawn”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Tapduk
“we have found”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Tapgaç
“famous; honored”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Tapık
“respect, reverence; service, hospitality”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Tapınç
“wide area; den; flock of birds or fish”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Taplı
“upright; suitable; plump”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Tarancı
“farmer”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Tardu
“gift, present”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 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.