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 21 of 25
- “sun saint”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “ripe sun”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “man of the day”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “I reach the sun”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “sun-man's blood”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “sun hero”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “sun”From Turkic · Turkish, AzerbaijaniUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “cheerful day”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “sun khan”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “sun lady”From Turkic · TurkishGirl4 syllablesEditorial
- “south”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesDocumented
- “sunlight”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “may (s)he see good days”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “lord Güngör”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “has seen the sun”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “one who lives in happiness and joy”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “one who has lived a happy, good life”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “luminous spring”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “sun rose”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “sun khan”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “daylight”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “sun trace”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “trace of the sun”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “bearing the trace of the sun”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 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.

