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
335 names · page 10 of 14
- “true oath”TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “true essence behind”TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “essence channel”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “strong, noble as a lion”TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “true father”TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “true forefather”TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “pure moon”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “bright essence”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “true Ayhan”TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “essence bond”TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “true honey”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “true head”TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “true ear of grain”TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “true lord”TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “of Uzbek descent”TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “true lord”TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “know yourself”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “true whetstone”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “one who knows the essence”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “wise by nature”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “wise by nature”TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “true one”TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “sincere soul”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “lively, agile person”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.

