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 5 of 26

Barsbey
“panther lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Bartu
“name of an early Turkic khagan”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Başağa
“chief lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Başak
“ear of grain”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Başar
“succeeds, achieves”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Başargan
“successful one”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Başarman
“one who brings tasks to success”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Başat
“dominant, prevailing”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Başay
“chief moon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Başaydın
“enlightened chief”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Başbay
“chief lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Başbuğ
“commander-in-chief”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Başcık
“ear of grain, the awned head of barley, wheat or oats”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Başdaş
“peer, companion”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Başdemir
“chief iron”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial

Başdoğan
“chief falcon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Başeğmez
“one who never bows his head”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Başel
“leader of the people”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Başer
“leading hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Bashan
“chief khan”
From Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Basir
“perceptive, insightful”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Basıra
“perceptive; sight”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Basiret
“insight, foresight”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Baskak
“brave, courageous”
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.