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 5 of 20

Emcet
“most honorable”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Emeç
“target; slope; suckling calf”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Emek
“labour, effort”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Emel
“aspiration, ideal”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Emetullah
“female servant of God”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl4 syllablesEditorial
Emin
“trustworthy; secure, sure”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Uzbek, Azerbaijani
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Emine
“trustworthy, faithful (feminine)”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Uzbek, Azerbaijani
Girl3 syllablesDocumented
Eminel
“trustworthy hand”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
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
Emirşah
“commander-king”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Emoş
“pet form of Emine: trustworthy, faithful”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Emrah
“travelling companion”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Emran
“furs, animal hides”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Emre
“friend, beloved”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Emri
“relating to a command”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Emriye
“relating to a command or order”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Emrullah
“command of God”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Enbiya
“prophets”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ender
“rarest, most precious”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Eneç
“dry watercourse; small hill”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ener
“bravest man”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Eneren
“foremost sage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Energin
“very mature person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 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.