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 21 of 257

Alpsoy
“of heroic lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Alpsü
“brave soldier”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Alptekin
“heroic prince”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alptoğan
“born a hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alptuğ
“hero's banner”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Alpyürek
“brave-hearted hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alpyürük
“restless, brave warrior”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Alsan
“win renown”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Alsancak
“red banner”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alsoy
“red lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Altaç
“red crown”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Altan
“red dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Altaner
“man of the red dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Altaş
“red stone”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Altav
“gold”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Altay
“the Altai mountains”
From Turkic · Turkish, Azerbaijani
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Altemür
“red-colored iron”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alten
“rosy body”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Altın
“gold”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Altınbaran
“worth its weight in gold”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Altınbaş
“golden head”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Altınbay
“golden lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Altınel
“golden hand”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Altıner
“golden man”
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.