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

113 names · page 1 of 5

Kadam
“friend, companion”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Kadrettin
“might of the faith”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kafar
“friend, companion”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Kahir
“overpowering; victorious”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Kakınç
“anger, resentment; a blow; rising to action”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Kaman
“high places near the mountain summits”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Kamanbay
“lord of the heights”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kamertab
“moonlight; radiance”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kâmuran
“fortunate, successful”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kanağan
“quick to believe, easily convinced”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kani
“content”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesLikely
Kanıkor
“fiery, lively by nature”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kaniye
“content with little”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Kanpolat
“brave, heroic person”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kanpulat
“brave, heroic person”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Kanturalı
“one who lives richly”
Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Kapagan
“name of a Göktürk khagan (reigned 691-716)”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Kara
“black; dark”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Karabet
“kinship”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Karaboğa
“black bull”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Karabörü
“black wolf”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Karaca
“roe deer”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Karacabey
“a Turkish commander renowned for heroism”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Karaçar
“evil spirits”
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.