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.
- Published names
- 7961
- Scripts in our data
- Latin
- ISO 639-1
- tr
Browse Turkish names
173 names · page 2 of 8
- “see the dawn”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn rose”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn day”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn lady”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “ancient steppe ruler's title”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “blessed dawn”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn ruins”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “flood of dawn light”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “you are the dawn”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn chief”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn voice”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “love the dawn”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “marvel; precious”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “water of the dawn”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesDocumented
- “Turk who lights up the dawn”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn + wind”From Turkic and Proto-Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesLikely
- “dawn breeze”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “place where dawn glows”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “morning star”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn road”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “variant of Tanju, an ancient steppe ruler's title”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “dawn-faced”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “golden dawn”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright; suitable; plump”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 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):
- Turkic4158
- Arabic2170
- Persian1209
- Greek42
- Mongolic39
- Hebrew28
- French14
Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.
Turkish names by meaning
Explore related languages
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.

