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 7 of 332

Adıyaman
“strong, capable, admired person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Adlan
“gain fame”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Adlı
“just, fair”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Adlığ
“famous person”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Adnan
“settler”
From Ottoman Turkish and Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesDocumented
Adni
“of Eden”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Adniye
“of Eden”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Adsız
“nameless, unknown”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Adsoy
“name and lineage”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Adviye
“kindness, helpfulness”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Afacan
“clever and mischievous child”
From Arabic and Persian · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Afak
“horizons”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Afer
“very white”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Afet
“a dazzling beauty”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Affan
“chaste, abstaining from wrong”
From Arabic · Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial

Âfi
“forgiving; erasing”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Afif
“chaste, virtuous”
From Arabic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Afife
“chaste, virtuous”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Afitap
“sun”
From Persian · Turkish
Girl3 syllablesEditorial
Afiyet
“health, well-being”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Afra
“white, fair-skinned”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Afrasyab
“Persian-tradition name of the Turkic hero Alp Er Tunga”
From Persian · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Afşar
“name of an Oghuz tribe”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Afşin
“old princely title”
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.