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

77 names · page 1 of 4

Nabiye
“messenger, informant”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nakiye
“pure; delicate”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Name
“letter; book”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Narhanım
“pomegranate lady”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nariye
“of fire”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nasiha
“one who gives advice”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nasip
“share, portion; lot”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nasiye
“one who forgets”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nasuhi
“sincerely repentant”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nazbike
“coy girl”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nazıdil
“coyness of the heart”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nazlım
“my darling, my cherished coy one”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nebihe
“famous; noble”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Necabet
“nobility of descent”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Necat
“salvation, deliverance”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial

Nedret
“rarity”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nefis
“exquisite”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nehar
“daytime”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Nemutlu
“how fortunate!”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nergise
“narcissus-shaped ornament; the Pleiades”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Neşat
“joy, cheer”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Neşecan
“joyful soul”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Neşever
“joy-giving”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Nesimî
“gentle, mild-natured”
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.