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

152 names · page 1 of 7

Ganime
“one who takes spoils”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Ganimet
“spoils of war; unexpected gain”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gaye
“aim, goal”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Gazel
“ghazal (a lyric poem form)”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gedikbaş
“chief of the pass”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gedikbay
“lord of the pass”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gediz
“the Gediz river”
From unknown · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gelengül
“arriving rose”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gelin
“bride; young woman”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gençsav
“young word”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gezginer
“travelling man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Girayalp
“Giray the hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gizmen
“keeper of secrets”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Göçmen
“migrant”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Göğüş
“fair-haired, blue-eyed person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial

Gök
“sky”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Gökbelen
“blue-green upland slope”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gökben
“sky-blue beauty spot”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gökbey
“sky lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gökbulut
“sky cloud”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gökçe
“sky-blue; beautiful”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gökçek
“beautiful and pleasant; brave; fresh”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gökçen
“heavenly, sky-like”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Göken
“greenery; a kind of mushroom”
Turkish
Unisex2 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.