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

620 names · page 12 of 26

Bengisu
“water of life”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Bengitaş
“eternal stone”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Bengü
“eternal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Bengühan
“eternal ruler”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Bengül
“beauty spot + rose”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Benian
“remember me”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Benice
“eternal, everlasting”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Benli
“having a mole”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Benligül
“rose with a beauty spot”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Bennur
“beauty spot + light”
From Turkic and Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Benol
“beauty spot + be, become”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Benşen
“beauty spot + joyful”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Bensu
“water of eternal life (from legend)”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Bent
“dam”
From Classical Persian · Turkish
Boy1 syllableLikely
Bentürk
“beauty spot + Turk”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Benzer
“similar, alike”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Berat
“innocence; acquittal”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Berceste
“choice, excellent”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Bercis
“the planet Jupiter”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Bereket
“blessing, abundance”
From Arabic · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Beren
“chainmail, particularly of high-quality steel”
From Persian · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesLikely
Berfin
“snowdrop”
From Kurdish · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Berfu
“snowflake”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Bergüzar
“keepsake, memento”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl3 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.