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

216 names · page 1 of 9

Ubeydullah
“little servant of God”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Ubeyt
“little servant”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Uçanay
“flying moon”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Uçanok
“flying arrow”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Uçantekin
“flying prince”
Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Uçantürk
“flying Turk”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Uçarer
“flying man”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Uçarlı
“unrealistic dreamer”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Ucatekin
“prince unrivalled in loftiness”
Turkish
Boy4 syllablesEditorial
Uçay
“tip of the moon”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Uçbay
“lord of the frontier”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Uçbeyi
“frontier lord, border commander”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Üçe
“lofty, high”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Üçel
“three lands”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Uçhan
“khan of the frontier”
Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Üçışık
“three lights”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Uçkan
“flighty, volatile”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Uçkara
“a bird; a commander of Timur”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Üçkök
“three roots”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Uçma
“snow-covered steep slope”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Üçük
“corner; landslide ground; faint”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Uçur
“moment, opportunity; season”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ufuk
“horizon”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesDocumented
Ufukay
“horizon moon”
From Arabic and Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 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.