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

706 names · page 1 of 30

Saadet
“happiness, good fortune”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur
Girl2 syllablesDocumented
Saadettin
“happiness of the faith”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Saba
“morning breeze”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Sabahat
“beauty of face”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Sabahattin
“morning of the faith”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Sabahnur
“morning light”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Şaban
“eighth month of the Hijri year”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Sabbar
“very patient”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Sabih
“bright-faced, handsome”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Sabiha
“bright-faced, beautiful”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Sabir
“patient”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Bashkir
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Sabit
“firm, steadfast”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Bashkir
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Sabite
“firm, steadfast”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Sabiye
“little girl”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Sabri
“patient”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Sabrinnisa
“most patient of women”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl4 syllablesEditorial
Sabriye
“patient”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Sabur
“very patient”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Saçı
“wedding gift; things scattered over a bride”
Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Sacide
“one who prostrates in prayer”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Sacit
“one who prostrates in prayer”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Sadak
“leather quiver; morning breeze”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Sadakat
“loyalty, fidelity”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Şadan
“happy, cheerful”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy2 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.