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

247 names · page 1 of 11

Habibe
“beloved”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Habip
“beloved, dear friend”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Hacer
“stranger, one who departed”
From Hebrew · Turkish, Azerbaijani
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Hacergül
“Hacer the rose”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Hacıgül
“pilgrim rose”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Hacıhanım
“pilgrim lady”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Girl4 syllablesEditorial
Hacıkadın
“pilgrim woman”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Girl4 syllablesEditorial
Hadiye
“guide”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Hadra
“very green; greenery”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Hafide
“granddaughter”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Hafıza
“memory; woman who memorized the Qur'an”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Hafizə
“guardian, keeper”
From Arabic · Turkish, Azerbaijani
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Hafsa
“young lioness”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uzbek
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Hakan
“khagan, ruler of rulers”
From Persian (from Old Turkic) · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Hakikat
“truth, reality”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial

Hâkime
“ruling, sovereign”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Hakkı
“rightful, of the truth”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Haktan
“from the Truth, from God”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Hakverdi
“God-given”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Halas
“deliverance, rescue”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Halaskâr
“savior”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Halâvet
“sweetness; delight”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Haldun
“eternal”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Hale
“moon; halo of the moon”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur
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):

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.