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

7,961 names · page 9 of 332

Agil
“sidelong glance”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ağın
“rise, ascent”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ağırtaş
“dignified, mature person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Ağış
“rise, ascent”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ağkız
“fair girl; chaste girl”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Ağnak
“exuberant, joyful”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aguş
“embrace, lap”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Ağyar
“others, strangers”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ahen
“iron”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ahenk
“harmony”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Ahfeş
“person who sees poorly by day but well at night”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ahi
“friend; brother; generous person”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ahıska
“a town in Georgia”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Ahmet
“more praiseworthy; most praiseworthy”
From Arabic · Turkish, Uyghur, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, Turkmen
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Ahsen
“most beautiful, best”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial

Ahter
“star”
From Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Ahu
“gazelle, deer”
From Persian · Turkish, Azerbaijani
Girl2 syllablesDocumented
Ak
“white; pure”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl1 syllableEditorial
Aka
“elder brother; father; respected person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akabay
“senior lord”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akabey
“senior lord”
Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akad
“known for honesty”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akadlı
“known for honesty”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akağan
“pure rising one”
From Turkic · 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.