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 9 of 81

Arıpınar
“clear flowing spring”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Arısu
“pure water”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Arkın
“slow, sluggish”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Arkoç
“honourable ram”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Armağan
“gift, present”
From disputed (Persian or Oghuz Turkic) · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesDocumented
Armanç
“ideal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Arpad
“little barley grain”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Arsal
“clean and hardworking”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Artık
“excellent, virtuous; extra, more”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Arukız
“lovely girl”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Arzuhan
“khan of wishes”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Asalbegüm
“true lady”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Asalet
“nobility”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Asılgül
“genuine rose”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Asimegül
“chaste rose-faced woman”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial

Aşina
“familiar; friend”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aşkın
“exceeding, surpassing”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented
Aşkınay
“transcendent moon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aslıbey
“of noble lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aslım
“benefit, advantage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Asliye
“distinguished, special; fundamental”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Asu
“unruly, restive; mischievous; rebellious”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Asutay
“unruly foal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Atabay
“wealthy, respected person”
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.