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

335 names · page 5 of 14

Olcay
“good fortune”
From Mongolic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Olcayhan
“fortunate khan”
From Mongolic and Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Olcaytürk
“lucky Turk”
From Mongolic and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Oldağ
“be a mountain”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ölen
“flowering meadow; folk song”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Olgun
“mature”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented
Olgunay
“full moon”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Olguner
“mature man”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Olgunsoy
“of mature lineage”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Olgunsu
“mature water”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Olkıvanç
“be proud”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ölmez
“immortal, everlasting”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Olpak
“be pure”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Olsan
“may your name be known”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Oluk
“ripe; stream; small watercourse”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Oluş
“becoming, coming into being”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ömer
“life, long life (suggested)”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Azerbaijani, Bashkir
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Ömür
“life, lifetime”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ömürcan
“life and soul”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Önalan
“one who acts first and prevails”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Onar
“distributive of on (ten each)”
From Ottoman Turkish · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesLikely
Onaran
“one who mends or heals”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Onat
“decent, upright”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Onatkan
“of good, honest descent”
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.