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 17 of 332

Akseven
“pure lover”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Aksevil
“pure beloved”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aksın
“whitish; lacking pigment, albino”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akşit
“auspicious; bright light”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Aksöğüt
“white willow”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Aksoy
“of noble lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aksu
“clear water”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aksülün
“white pheasant”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Aksuna
“white wild duck”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Aksungur
“white gyrfalcon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Aksüyek
“of pure lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aktaç
“white crown”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aktalay
“white sea”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Aktan
“white dawn”
From Turkic · Turkish, Kazakh, Kyrgyz
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Aktar
“herbalist, spice seller; drops”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

Aktaş
“white stone; marble”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Aktay
“white foal”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Aktekin
“pure prince”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Aktemür
“white iron”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Aktiirk
“a noble, pure and honest Turk”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Aktimur
“white iron”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Aktolga
“white helmet”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Aktolun
“white full moon”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aktuğ
“white banner”
From Turkic · 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.