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

479 names · page 11 of 20

Ergenekon
“summit of a mountain; legendary valley in Turkic origin myth”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Ergener
“young man, adolescent”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergi
“attaining something good”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ergil
“trustworthy man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ergin
“mature, grown”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Erginalp
“mature hero”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erginay
“mature moon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erginbay
“mature and respected person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergincan
“mature soul”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erginel
“mature hand”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erginer
“mature man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Erginsoy
“of mature lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergintuğ
“mature standard”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergök
“man of the sky”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ergökmen
“blue-eyed, fair person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Ergönen
“prospering man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergönül
“good-hearted man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergör
“seeing man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ergüç
“manly strength”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ergüden
“brave man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergüder
“leading man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergül
“freshly opened rose”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ergüleç
“smiling man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ergülen
“always-smiling person”
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.