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

202 names · page 3 of 9

Ukuş
“understanding, intellect; lineage”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ulaçhan
“connecting khan”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ulaçkan
“binding blood”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ulakbey
“messenger lord”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Ulam
“continuous; category; skilled”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ulaş
“reach, arrive”
From Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Üleş
“sharing; a share”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ülez
“setting sun; epidemic”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ülgener
“exalted, great person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ülger
“fine down on a peach; the Pleiades”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ülgü
“handsome person; share; manner”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ülke
“country; homeland”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ülken
“your homeland”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ülküdeş
“one who shares the same ideal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Ülkülü
“person with an ideal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial

Ülkümen
“one devoted to an ideal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ulualp
“exalted hero”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Uluant
“great, sacred oath”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ulubaş
“exalted, respected person”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ulubay
“exalted, respected person”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Ulubek
“great lord”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Uluberk
“great and firm”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ulubey
“great lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Uluç
“historical title of Turkmen chiefs”
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.