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

1,936 names · page 10 of 81

Atabörü
“ancestor wolf”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Atak
“outgoing, lively; generous”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Atambay
“my father the lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Atanur
“father of light”
From Turkic and Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Atasagun
“physician”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Atıfa
“compassion, affection”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Atılay
“bold moon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Atlı
“mounted, horse-owning”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Atmaca
“sparrowhawk”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Avunç
“consolation, comfort”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ay
“moon”
Turkish, Uyghur
Unisex1 syllableDocumented
Aya
“refined lady”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Ayaça
“dear refined lady”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ayal
“wife”
From Turkic and Arabic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Ayaltın
“golden moon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial

Ayas
“full moon; moonlight”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Ayataç
“moon crown”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aybet
“moon-faced”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aybey
“moon lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aybüke
“moon lady”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aycan
“dear as the moon”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ayceren
“moon-like gazelle”
From Turkic and Mongolic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aydanur
“moonlight”
From Turkic and Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aydar
“forelock”
From Turkic · 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.