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

69 names · page 1 of 3

Padişah
“sovereign, sultan”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Pak
“clean, pure”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Pakalın
“pure forehead, honest”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Pakan
“saints, holy ones”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Pakbaz
“faithful, devoted”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Pakel
“pure hand”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Paker
“pure, honest person”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Paki
“purity”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Pakize
“pure, pretty girl”
From Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur, Azerbaijani
Girl3 syllablesDocumented
Pakkan
“pure blood”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Paksan
“pure name”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Paksu
“pure water”
Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Paksüt
“pure milk”
Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Pamir
“name of a mountain”
From Persian and Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Pamuk
“cotton”
Turkish
2 syllablesDocumented

Papatya
“daisy”
From Greek · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Parla
“shine!”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Parlanur
“shine like light”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Payan
“end, limit”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl1 syllableEditorial
Paye
“rank, degree; step”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl1 syllableEditorial
Payende
“lasting, permanent”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Payidar
“lasting; esteemed”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Pekak
“very white, very pure”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Pekay
“firm moon”
Turkish
Girl2 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.