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

6,152 names · page 11 of 257

Akcan
“pure soul”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akçasu
“pale water”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Akçay
“white stream”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akcebe
“white armor”
From Turkic and Mongolic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçer
“fair man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akçığır
“pure path”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçıl
“whitish; pale”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akçınar
“white plane tree”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçit
“auspicious, blessed; a white-ground printed cloth”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akcivan
“fair youth”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akçora
“brave hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akdağ
“white mountain”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akdal
“white branch”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akdamar
“white vein”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akdemir
“white iron”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial

Akdeniz
“Mediterranean (white sea)”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akdes
“most sacred”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akdik
“pure and upright”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akdiken
“white thorn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Akdil
“one who speaks well”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akdoğ
“good luck to you”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akdoğan
“gyrfalcon”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesDocumented
Akdoğdu
“born pure”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akdoğmuş
“born pure”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 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.