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.
- Published names
- 7961
- Scripts in our data
- Latin
- ISO 639-1
- tr
Browse Turkish names
581 names · page 1 of 25
- “forgiving”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “forgiving”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “forgiving”From Arabic · Turkish, Tatar, BashkirBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “victorious”From Arabic · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “victorious, winner”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “dimple”From Arabic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesDocumented
- “rich, wealthy”From Arabic · Turkish, Kazakh, TatarBoy2 syllablesDocumented
- “one who takes spoils”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “spoils of war; unexpected gain”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “rich, self-sufficient”From Arabic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “unseen, strange, astonishing”From Arabic · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “stranger; forlorn; strange; touching”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “relating to help or support; one who dives deep”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “aim, goal”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex1 syllableEditorial
- “effort, zeal”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “gazelle”From Arabic · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “lion”From Arabic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “ghazal (a lyric poem form)”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “veteran warrior”From Arabic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “mountain pass; notch; privilege; high place”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “chief of the pass”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “lord of the pass”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “stone of the pass”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “the Gediz river”From unknown · TurkishUnisex2 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):
- Turkic4158
- Arabic2170
- Persian1209
- Greek42
- Mongolic39
- Hebrew28
- French14
Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.
Turkish names by meaning
Explore related languages
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.

