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.
- Published names
- 7961
- Scripts in our data
- Latin
- ISO 639-1
- tr
Browse Turkish names
7,961 names · page 90 of 332
- “seeing, eye, beholding, meeting face to face”From Persian · Turkish, Uyghur, TurkmenBoy2 syllablesDocumented
- “my eye”From Persian · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “crown”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “vertical”From Middle Chinese · TurkishBoy1 syllableLikely
- “upright hero”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright moon”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “stubborn, strong-willed person”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright lord”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright bull”From Turkic · TurkishBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “upright pine”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright branch”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “vertical; a pointed iron tool for making planting holes”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright hand; a spade or hoe”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “thorn”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright man”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “vertical”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “conical peak; highest point of a mountain; plateau”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright lineage”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “upright stone”From Turkic · TurkishBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “heart”From Persian · TurkishBoy1 syllableEditorial
- “O heart”From Persian · Turkish, KazakhGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “folk dance”From Kurdish · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “one who captivates, adorns and embellishes the heart”From Persian and Turkic · Turkish, Uyghur, KazakhGirl3 syllablesDocumented
- “heart-stirring beauty”From Persian · TurkishGirl3 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):
- Turkic4158
- Arabic2170
- Persian1209
- Greek42
- Mongolic39
- Hebrew28
- French14
Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.
Turkish names by meaning
Explore related languages
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.

