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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
541
Scripts in our data
Latin
ISO 639-1
tr

Browse Turkish names

29 names · page 1 of 2

  • Ebrar

    “the pious, the righteous”
    From Arabic · Turkish
    Girl2 syllablesDocumented

  • Ebru

    “ebru (marbled paper, handmade in a variety of styles by artisans using traditional techniques)”
    From Classical Persian · Turkish
    Girl2 syllablesLikely

  • Ece

    “queen”
    From Proto-Turkic · Turkish
    Unisex2 syllablesDocumented

  • Efe

    “brave person; elder brother”
    From uncertain (Turkic or Greek) · Turkish
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Ege

    “the Aegean (Sea)”
    From Greek · Turkish
    Unisex2 syllablesDocumented

  • Egemen

    “sovereign, dominant”
    From Greek · Turkish
    Unisex3 syllablesDocumented

  • Ekin

    “crop, harvest”
    From Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur
    Unisex2 syllablesDocumented

  • Elif

    “alif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet”
    From Arabic · Turkish
    Girl2 syllablesDocumented

  • Emin

    “trustworthy; secure, sure”
    From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Azerbaijani
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Emine

    “trustworthy, faithful (feminine)”
    From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Uzbek, Azerbaijani
    Girl3 syllablesDocumented

  • Emir

    “prince, commander; leader or ruler”
    From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Azerbaijani, Bashkir
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Emirhan

    “emir (prince, commander) + khan (ruler)”
    From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
    Boy3 syllablesDocumented

  • Engin

    “vast”
    From Ottoman Turkish · Turkish
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Ercan

    “man, hero + soul”
    From Turkic and Persian · Turkish, Kazakh, Kyrgyz
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Ercüment

    “precious, valuable”
    From Ottoman Turkish and Classical Persian · Turkish
    Boy3 syllablesDocumented

  • Erdem

    “virtue”
    From Old Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Erdeniz

    “man + sea”
    From Proto-Turkic · Turkish
    Boy3 syllablesLikely

  • Erenay

    “synonym of ermiş + moon”
    From Proto-Turkic · Turkish
    Boy3 syllablesLikely

  • Erhan

    “brave (man) + ruler”
    From Turkic · Turkish
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Erkin

    “free, independent”
    From Proto-Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur, Kazakh, Uzbek
    Boy2 syllablesDocumented

  • Erkurt

    “man + A wolf”
    From Proto-Turkic · Turkish
    Boy2 syllablesLikely

  • Esen

    “breeze, that which blows”
    From Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur
    Unisex2 syllablesDocumented

  • Esin

    “inspiration”
    From Turkic · Turkish
    Unisex2 syllablesDocumented

  • Əsma

    “names”
    From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Azerbaijani
    Girl2 syllablesDocumented

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):

  • Arabic
    238
  • Turkic
    183
  • Persian
    92
  • Greek
    17
  • Hebrew
    10
  • West
    8
  • Azerbaijani
    6

Counted from 541 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

References for this page

  1. Wikipedia contributors. Turkic languages. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1377797900. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
  2. Wikipedia contributors. Turkish alphabet. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1381762599. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.