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 18 of 332

Aktün
“bright, moonlit night”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Aktuna
“white bronze”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Aktunç
“white bronze”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akün
“well and rightly known”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akünal
“pure and renowned”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akyel
“south wind”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akyiğit
“brave man known for honesty”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akyıldız
“bright star”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Akyipek
“white silk”
Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Akyol
“honest, righteous path”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akyön
“pure direction”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Akyürek
“pure-hearted, well-meaning person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Akyurt
“pure homeland”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Akyüz
“honorable, upright person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Ala
“multicolored; hazel”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial

Alâaddin
“eminence of the faith”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alabaş
“animal with a mottled head; a bird with mixed-coloured head feathers”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alabay
“colourful lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alabegim
“colourful lady”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex4 syllablesEditorial
Alabegüm
“colourful lady”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl4 syllablesEditorial
Alabezek
“a migratory bird resembling a stork”
From Turkic · Turkish
Girl4 syllablesEditorial
Alaca
“multicolored, mottled”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Alaçam
“multicoloured pine”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Alacan
“colourful soul”
From Turkic and Persian · 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.