100 Beautiful Turkish Girl Names and What They Mean

Ahu

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Deer, gazelle
• Pronunciation: ah-HOO

Ahu came into Turkish from Persian ahu, the word for a deer or gazelle. Gazelle imagery runs deep in Persian and Ottoman poetry, where a beloved’s dark, wide eyes were compared to a doe’s, so the name arrives with several centuries of romantic literature behind it.

It is short, open and easy for English speakers, two syllables with no consonant cluster to trip over. That makes it one of the simplest Turkish girl names to carry abroad.

Ahu shares its shape with the unrelated Polynesian word ahu, which is why you will also see it in Pacific Islander name lists. The Turkish name and the Polynesian word are separate words that happen to look alike.

Aisha

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Living, alive
• Pronunciation: ah-EE-shah
• Popularity: #337 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (910 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 60% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Aisha means living or alive in Arabic, from the root asha, to live. The Turkish form is Ayse, which ranked #65 in Turkey in 2024, so the two spellings sit side by side across the Turkish-speaking world.

The name belonged to Muhammad’s third wife, the daughter of Abu Bakr, which is why it travels everywhere Islam does. Turkey builds on it too: Aysegul adds gul, rose, and Aysenur adds nur, light.

If you want a spelling that reads clearly in English, Aisha and Ayesha are the two that carry best. Aicha, Aishat and Aishah are all in use elsewhere.

Aiyla

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Moonlight, halo
• Pronunciation: EYE-lah

Aiyla is a spelling variant of Ayla, a Turkish name meaning moonlight or halo, built on ay, the Turkish word for moon. Ayla itself ranked #93 in Turkey in 2024.

Turkish parents have an unusual number of moon names to pick from, and ay anchors most of them: Aydan is from the moon, Aynur is moonlight, Aysel is pure moon, and Ilkay is new moon. Aiyla belongs to that family.

The extra i softens the first syllable slightly and steers English speakers toward EYE-lah rather than AY-lah. If you would rather people get it right the first time, the plain Ayla spelling is the safer bet.

Ajda

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Returning, visitor
• Pronunciation: AZH-dah

Ajda is the Turkish form of Ayda, which carries the Arabic sense of returning or visitor. The j is pronounced like the s in measure, which gives the name a soft, unexpected opening for English ears.

It is also a separate Slovenian word meaning buckwheat, a staple grain that turns up constantly in Slovenian folk art and cooking. Same four letters, unrelated roots, which is why the name shows up in Central Europe as well. In Turkey the name is inseparable from Ajda Pekkan, the singer who has been a fixture of Turkish pop since the 1960s.

Alara

• Origin: Turkic mythology
• Meaning: A water fairy of Turkic legend
• Pronunciation: ah-LAH-rah

Alara has no settled etymology. Behind the Name records it as a modern Turkish feminine name and as a rare name from Turkic mythology, without offering a definition, so anyone who tells you it has one fixed meaning is guessing.

The legend is the real draw. In Turkic folklore Alara is a water fairy who grants wishes and whose face, once seen, empties greed and hatred out of a person’s heart. That is an unusually generous story to hand a child.

The sound helps as much as the story. Three open syllables, no hard consonants, and a rhythm close to Amara and Elara, names already familiar in English.

Asli

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Origin, original, essence
• Pronunciation: ahs-LUH

Asli, written Aslı in Turkish with a dotless i, means origin, original or essence. It is the same root that gives Aslihan, which pairs it with han, khan or leader.

The name belongs to one of Turkey’s great tragic love stories. Asli is the heroine of the sixteenth-century folk romance Asli ve Kerem, a tale of two lovers kept apart by faith and family that Turkish audiences reach for the way English speakers reach for Romeo and Juliet.

That final vowel is the tricky part. The dotless Turkish i sounds nothing like the English long e; it lands closer to the vowel at the end of sofa.

Ayça

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Like the moon, crescent
• Pronunciation: eye-CHAH

Ayça joins ay, moon, with a suffix of likeness, so the name reads as like the moon and is usually glossed as the crescent. It sits in the same family as Ayça’s cousins Aylin, Aysel and Aynur.

The c in Turkish is a ch sound, so the name is eye-CHAH, not eye-KAH. It is worth deciding early whether you want to spell it Ayça and correct people or Aycha and lose the Turkish orthography.

Actress Ayça Aysin Turan, whose family resettled in Turkey after the Ottoman collapse, has carried the name through a long run of Turkish television dramas.

Aylin

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Of the moon, moonlight
• Pronunciation: eye-LEEN
• Popularity: #345 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (885 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 30% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Aylin is an elaborated form of ay, the Turkish, Azerbaijani and Kazakh word for moon, and is usually read as moonlight or belonging to the moon. It is the most internationally successful name on this list.

The numbers back that up. Aylin ranked #5 in Azerbaijan and #345 in the United States in 2025, #16 in Tatarstan in 2021 and #99 in Turkey in 2021, which is a rare spread for a name that has never been anglicized.

It also happens to be a favorite among Turkish athletes, from weightlifter Aylin Dasdelen to volleyball player Aylin Sarioglu and footballer Aylin Yaren.

For English speakers it has the useful property of sounding both familiar and new, one consonant away from Aileen and Eileen without being either.

Aysun

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Built on ay, moon
• Pronunciation: eye-SOON

Aysun is another of Turkey’s ay names. The first element is plainly moon; the second is uncertain, which is why you will see it glossed loosely as a face as lovely as the moon rather than translated word for word.

The honest version is better than the invented one. Turkish onomastic sources record the second element as unclear, so treat the poetic reading as tradition rather than etymology. Model and presenter Aysun Kayaci made the name widely familiar in Turkey in the 2000s.

Ayten

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Moon skin, luminous complexion
• Pronunciation: eye-TEN

Ayten combines ay, moon, with ten, skin, so it describes someone whose complexion has a moonlit glow. It is one of the more literal compounds in the ay family and one of the prettiest.

It reads as mid-century in Turkey, the sort of name a grandmother carries, which is exactly the vintage territory a lot of parents are mining right now. Singer Ayten Alpman and poet Ayten Mutlu both did well by it, and between them they give the name an artistic tilt.

Azize

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Precious, respected, beloved
• Pronunciation: ah-zee-ZEH

Azize is the feminine form of Aziz, from Arabic aziz, meaning powerful, respected and beloved. In Turkish usage the affectionate reading dominates, so it lands closer to precious than to mighty.

The three-syllable shape with the stress on the last beat is very Turkish, and it gives the name a lift that shorter picks on this list do not have.

Taekwondo athlete Azize Tanrikulu has taken it into Turkish sport, which is part of why it reads energetic rather than formal.

Azra

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Maiden
• Pronunciation: AHZ-rah
• Popularity: #2,587 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (67 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 49% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Azra means virgin or maiden in Arabic and has been fully naturalized in Turkish, where it ranked #25 in 2024. That puts it among the genuinely current picks here rather than the heritage ones.

Two syllables, a clean consonant cluster and a final a make it travel well; it is the kind of name that needs no explanation in an English-speaking classroom.

Dutch-Turkish model Azra Akin was crowned Miss World in 2002, which gave the name a visible international bearer at exactly the moment it was climbing at home.

Bahar

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Spring, the season
• Pronunciation: bah-HAR

Bahar is simply the Turkish word for spring, borrowed from Persian. It belongs to a small set of Turkish season names that includes Eylul for September and Hazan for autumn.

Season names carry their mood without needing a story attached, and spring is the one every language treats as a beginning. That makes Bahar an easy pick for a first daughter.

German singer Bahar Kizil, of Turkish descent, is one of the more visible bearers outside Turkey.

Banu

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Lady
• Pronunciation: bah-NOO

Banu came into Turkish from Persian banu, meaning lady, and historically functioned as a courtesy title before it settled into use as a given name. That is where the princess gloss you often see comes from.

It also works beautifully as a compound element, which is how Persian and Mughal naming used it. The Mughal princess Bahar Banu Begum, daughter of Emperor Jahangir, is a good example of the title-plus-name pattern.

In modern Turkey it reads settled and slightly formal. Actress Banu Alkan was a fixture of 1980s Turkish film, which fixes the name in that decade for most Turkish ears.

Basak

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Ear of wheat; the constellation Virgo
• Pronunciation: bah-SHAHK

Basak means an ear of wheat, and it doubles as the Turkish name for the constellation Virgo, which is pictured holding a sheaf of grain. One word, an agricultural image and a star name in the same breath.

The s carries a cedilla in Turkish, making it a sh sound, so it is bah-SHAHK. Written without the diacritic it invites a hard s that misses the name entirely.

Tennis player Basak Eraydin is the best-known bearer in Turkish sport.

Belkis

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: The traditional name of the Queen of Sheba
• Pronunciation: bel-KEES

Belkis is the Turkish form of Bilqis, the name Islamic tradition gives the Queen of Sheba. It is not a word with a dictionary meaning; it is a person, which is why the usual glosses of queen and princess are really descriptions of her rather than translations.

In the story she rules a wealthy southern kingdom, matches wits with Solomon and is remembered for her judgment rather than her looks. Few name origins hand a daughter a better model.

Belkis Sevket Hanim, the writer and teacher who in 1913 became the first Turkish woman to fly in an aircraft, is the name’s landmark modern bearer.

Beren

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Strong, smart
• Pronunciation: beh-REN
• Popularity: #3,188 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (37 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. In the United States, Beren is used almost entirely as a boys’ name. Rising in the United States, up 92% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Beyza

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: White, bright
• Pronunciation: BAY-zah
• Popularity: #9,550 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (10 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 3% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Beyza comes from Arabic bayda, the feminine of abyad, white, and carries the extended sense of bright or spotless. It ranked #56 in Turkey in 2024.

The same Arabic word named a city in Iran, Bayda, translated from an older Parthian name that also meant white. Place and person share the root.

Bayza, Baiza and Bayda are the spelling variants you will meet, all with the same meaning. The Turkish form is the one that gives you the crisp BAY opening.

Bike

• Origin: Turkic
• Meaning: Lady, noblewoman
• Pronunciation: bee-KEH

Bike looks alarming in English and is nothing of the sort. It is an old Turkic honorific for a lady or noblewoman, the feminine counterpart to bey, and it survives mostly inside compounds rather than on its own.

Those compounds are where the name is really alive: Aybike joins it to ay, moon; Suyumbike and Isenbike come out of Tatar and Volga Turkic naming. Bikem is the affectionate form.

Said in Turkish it is two syllables, bee-KEH, which puts a good deal of distance between the name and the bicycle. Outside Turkey that distance may not survive the first roll call, so this one is worth thinking through.

Birgül

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: One rose
• Pronunciation: beer-GEWL

Birgül is a transparent compound: bir means one, gul means rose. One rose, the single perfect bloom rather than the bouquet.

It sits inside the largest name family in Turkish. Gul generates Gulay (rose moon), Gulcan (rose soul), Gulnur (rose light), Gulistan (rose garden) and Songul (last rose), among dozens of others.

The writer Birgül Oguz carries it today. The u is the front-rounded Turkish vowel, closer to the ew in few than to oo.

Burcu

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Sweet-smelling, fragrant
• Pronunciation: boor-JOO

Burcu means sweet smelling or fragrant. Turkish handles scent with real precision, and Burcu describes the quality of a smell drifting toward you rather than the substance producing it.

It belongs to a small group of Turkish sensory names, alongside Reyhan for basil and Cagla for green almonds. Burcin, a near neighbor, is unrelated and means a doe.

Actress Burcu Ozberk won the Golden Butterfly for her comedy work, rally driver Burcu Cetinkaya raced internationally, and para-archer Burcu Dag has world titles. The name is doing well across very different fields.

The Turkish c is a j sound, so boor-JOO. Spelled phonetically for English it would be Boorjoo, which is a good argument for keeping the Turkish spelling.

Buse

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Kiss
• Pronunciation: boo-SEH

Buse means kiss, borrowed from Persian bose. It is one of the softest words Turkish handed to its name stock and has been steadily popular with Turkish parents for decades.

The final e is pronounced, boo-SEH, never boos. That single vowel is the whole difference between a pretty name and an awkward one in English.

The wrestler Buse Tosun Cavusoglu keeps the name in the sports pages. It also works as a middle name, as swimmer Dilara Buse Gunaydin shows.

Cagla

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Green almonds
• Pronunciation: chah-LAH

Cagla is the Turkish word for green almonds, the unripe ones eaten whole with salt in spring before the shell hardens. It is a seasonal, specific, slightly tart image rather than a generic flower name.

The related verb caglamak describes water tumbling and rushing, which is where the alternative gloss of flowing water comes from. Turkish speakers hear both.

Written properly it is Çağla, with a cedilla on the C and a soft g, giving chah-LAH with the middle consonant almost swallowed.

Canan

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Sweetheart, beloved
• Pronunciation: jah-NAHN

Canan means sweetheart or beloved. It grows out of can, the Turkish word for soul or life that also works as a term of endearment, so the name is roughly the one my soul belongs to.

Turkish divan poetry used Canan as the standard word for the beloved, often with a mystical second layer where the beloved is the divine. That gives it more depth than a straight sweetheart name.

It is pronounced jah-NAHN, not KAY-nan, and is unrelated to the biblical Canaan despite the resemblance on the page.

Scientist Canan Dagdeviren, who develops wearable medical devices at MIT, is a bearer worth knowing about.

Cemile

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Beautiful
• Pronunciation: jeh-mee-LEH

Cemile is the Turkish form of Jamila, from Arabic jamil, beautiful. The root jamal covers grace and good character as much as looks, which is how Turkish speakers usually read it.

Three syllables with the stress at the end give it a formal, unhurried sound. It reads as a grandmother name in Turkey right now, which is roughly where Clara and Eleanor sat before they came back. Cemile Sultan, daughter of Sultan Abdulmecid and sister to four later sultans, is the Ottoman bearer the name is attached to.

Cemre

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: An ember; the first warmth of spring
• Pronunciation: JEM-reh
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2015 at #14,880 (6 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Cemre is a folklore term rather than an ordinary noun. Turkish tradition says three embers fall from the sky at the end of winter, one week apart: the first warms the air, the second the water, the third the soil.

The name therefore means something closer to the exact moment winter breaks than to fire. Turkish weather reports still announce the falling of each cemre in February, so the word is alive in daily speech.

It ranked #62 in Turkey in 2024.

Ceren

• Origin: Turkish, from Mongolian
• Meaning: Young gazelle
• Pronunciation: jeh-REN

Ceren means gazelle and reached Turkish from Mongolian, which makes it one of the few names here to arrive from the east rather than from Arabic or Persian. Ceylan, the other Turkish gazelle name, came the other way, through Persian.

Gazelle names are everywhere in this tradition because the animal is the standard poetic figure for grace and dark eyes. Ahu and Hazal cover the same ground with different roots.

Pronounced jeh-REN. The near-twin Seren is a Welsh name meaning star, worth knowing about if you like the sound but want a different origin.

Ceyda

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Long-necked, and by extension graceful
• Pronunciation: JAY-dah

Ceyda comes from an Arabic word describing a long, elegant neck, which Arabic poetry treated as a mark of beauty and bearing. Turkish took the compliment and dropped the anatomy, so it now simply reads as graceful and tall.

The opening is a j, giving JAY-dah, which lands close enough to Jada that English speakers rarely stumble. That is a real advantage for a name this uncommon abroad.

Damla

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Drop of water
• Pronunciation: dahm-LAH
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2013 at #17,183 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Damla is the Turkish word for a single drop of water, the kind that beads on a leaf. It ranked #69 in Turkey in 2024, so it is in genuine current use rather than parked in the vintage file.

Turkish has a real appetite for small, exact water names: Damla for the drop, Su for water itself, Irmak and Nehir for rivers, Deniz for the sea.

Water polo player Damla Deniz Duz doubles up on the theme, carrying both the drop and the sea.

Defne

• Origin: Turkish, from Greek
• Meaning: Laurel, bay tree
• Pronunciation: DEF-neh
• Popularity: #4,285 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (33 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 60% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Defne was the single most popular girl’s name in Turkey in 2024 ⁽²⁾. If you want a name that is unmistakably Turkish and unmistakably current, this is the one.

It comes from Greek Daphne, the laurel. In the myth the nymph Daphne asks to be turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo, and the laurel wreath became the classical mark of victory.

Turkish clips it to two firm syllables, DEF-neh, which is brisker and more modern than the English Daphne. Same tree, very different mood.

Derya

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Sea, ocean
• Pronunciation: der-YAH

Derya is the second Turkish word for the sea, borrowed from Persian darya, and it carries a grander sense than Deniz does. Where Deniz is the sea you swim in, Derya is the open ocean.

Turkish poetry uses it for anything vast: a derya of knowledge is an ocean of it. The name inherits that scale.

Dilara

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: She who adorns the heart
• Pronunciation: dee-lah-RAH

Dilara is the Turkish form of Persian Delara. Del is the heart and ara comes from araidan, to adorn or beautify, so the name means she who makes the heart beautiful.

Persian poets used Dilara for centuries as a stock figure for the delightful beloved, and the name spread with the poetry. It is now common across Iran, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Turkey.

Four syllables is long for this list, but the rhythm is even and the nickname Dila is ready-made.

Dilek

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Wish, desire
• Pronunciation: dee-LEK

Dilek is the Turkish word for a wish, and it shares its root with Dilara’s dil, the heart. It is one of a cluster of Turkish wish-and-hope names that includes Emel, Umut and Ozlem.

The word turns up on the map as well: there are towns and villages called Dilek in Malatya and Kastamonu provinces.

Heart surgeon Dilek Gursoy, of Turkish descent and working in Germany, became the first woman in Europe to implant an artificial heart. Model and actress Dilek Serbest is the name’s other visible bearer.

Duru

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Clear, lucid
• Pronunciation: doo-ROO
• Popularity: #7,998 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (13 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 35% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Duru means clear or lucid, used of water you can see straight through and of a mind that thinks the same way. It ranked #10 in Turkey in 2024, one of the country’s genuine current favorites.

It belongs to the wave of short, plain, purely Turkish words that have taken over Turkish nurseries in the last two decades, alongside Ada, Ela, Su and Doga. No Arabic or Persian layer, just the everyday adjective.

Two open syllables and a rolled r are all it asks of an English speaker. Almost nothing on this list is easier to say or to spell.

Ela

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Hazel, the eye color
• Pronunciation: eh-LAH
• Popularity: #1,562 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (135 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 36% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ela is the Turkish word for hazel, used specifically of eye color. It ranked #27 in Turkey in 2024, and its compound Elanur, hazel light, is climbing alongside it.

Three letters, two syllables, no sound that any language struggles with. It also doubles as a short form for Eleanor, Elizabeth and Angela, which gives it a second route into English-speaking families.

That flexibility cuts both ways: Ela is common enough across Europe and South Asia that it will not read as distinctly Turkish outside Turkey.

Elif

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: The letter alif; slender, upright
• Pronunciation: eh-LEEF
• Popularity: #1,915 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (101 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 93% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Elif is the Turkish form of alif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, written as a single upright stroke. Because of that shape the name also carries the sense of slender and tall.

Ottoman poets built a whole convention on it, comparing a beloved’s figure to the letter alif, so the name is a piece of literary shorthand that everyone in the tradition recognizes.

It ranked #7 in Turkey in 2024 and has spent years near the top. If Defne is the name of the moment, Elif is the name of the generation.

It is also about as portable as a Turkish name gets: four letters, two syllables, nothing an English speaker has to be taught.

Elmas

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Diamond
• Pronunciation: el-MAHS

Elmas is the Turkish word for a diamond, arriving through Persian from the same ancient root that gave English adamant and, eventually, diamond. The old sense of unbreakable is still in there.

That is why the name gets glossed as stubborn and unyielding as well as precious. Both readings come from the same stone.

Armenian uses the related Almast, and Arabic almas is the immediate source. Ottoman statesman Elmas Mehmed Pasha, grand vizier in 1695, shows the name was once used for men as well.

Elnara

• Origin: Azerbaijani
• Meaning: Built on el, people or homeland
• Pronunciation: el-nah-RAH

Elnara is Azerbaijani rather than strictly Turkish, though the two languages are close enough that it travels easily into Turkish use. The first element is el, the Turkic word for a people, a homeland or a whole nation.

The second half is disputed. Some read it as nar, the pomegranate that is Azerbaijan’s national fruit; others take it from Arabic nar, fire, or nur, light. No single reading is settled, so it is fairer to say the name means homeland plus something luminous.

The sound is the selling point either way. Three syllables, a soft l and an open ending give it the flow of Elena and Zara at once.

Emel

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Desire, aspiration
• Pronunciation: eh-MEL

Emel means desire or aspiration in Turkish, borrowed from Arabic amal, hope. It is the ambition version of a wish name, where Dilek is the quieter one.

Because the Arabic source is the same, Amal and Emel are effectively the same name in different mouths. Tunisian musician Emel Mathlouthi, whose song Kelmti Horra became an anthem of the 2011 revolution, uses the Turkish-style spelling.

Two even syllables and a symmetrical shape on the page make it one of the tidier picks here.

Emira

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Princess, commander
• Pronunciation: eh-MEE-rah

Emira is the feminine of amir, the Arabic word for a commander or prince, so the literal reading is a woman who leads rather than a woman who is merely well born. Amira is the more common spelling.

Turkish keeps the word in emir and in place names across the old Ottoman world, which is how the feminine form settled into Turkish use. It should not be confused with Hebrew Amira, a separate name meaning treetop or speech. Same sound, different root.

Esma

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Names, in the sense of the divine names
• Pronunciation: es-MAH
• Popularity: #5,293 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (24 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 85% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Esma is the Turkish and Bosnian form of Arabic Asma, the plural of ism, name. In Islamic usage it points to the ninety-nine names of God, so it is a devotional name rather than a descriptive one.

It ranked #100 in Turkey in 2024 and is equally at home in Bosnia and among Romani families across the Balkans, which is a wider Balkan reach than most names on this list.

Two syllables and a hard opening consonant give it more spine than the softer picks nearby. It also shortens naturally to Es.

Eylül

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: September
• Pronunciation: ay-LEWL
• Popularity: #20 in Turkey in 2024

Eylül is the Turkish word for September, and it ranked #20 in Turkey in 2024. Month names are rare in most naming traditions and unremarkable in Turkish, which also gives daughters Nisan for April.

September in Turkey is the end of a long, hard summer, the first cool evenings after months of heat, so the name carries relief rather than the fading-year mood English attaches to autumn.

The u is the front-rounded Turkish vowel, so it is ay-LEWL rather than ay-LOOL.

Fatima

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: One who weans an infant
• Pronunciation: fah-TEE-mah

Fatima means one who weans, from an Arabic root about separating a child from nursing. Fatima was the daughter of Muhammad and the ancestor of his surviving line, which is why the name reaches every corner of the Muslim world.

The Turkish form is Fatma, which ranked #72 in Turkey in 2024, and it is what you will actually hear in Turkey. Fadime is the rural variant and Fatos the affectionate short form.

So the spelling here is the international one and the pronunciation at home is FAHT-mah, two syllables rather than three.

Feriha

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Joyful, glad
• Pronunciation: feh-ree-HAH

Feriha is the Turkish form of Fariha, from the Arabic root f-r-h, which covers gladness and rejoicing. Urdu spells the same name Fareeha.

The Turkish soap Adini Feriha Koydular carried it to audiences from the Balkans to South America in the 2010s, which is a rare kind of reach for a name this traditional.

Actresses Feriha Tevfik, Turkey’s first beauty queen in 1929, and Feriha Eyuboglu both wore it well.

Feryal

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Ornament, adornment
• Pronunciation: fer-YAHL

Feryal is an Arabic name usually read as ornament or adornment, and it is used across Turkey, Iran and the Levant. Feryale and Feryall are the spelling variants you will meet.

The strong final syllable gives it a decisive close, which is unusual on a list where most names trail off into a vowel. Astrophysicist Feryal Ozel, a Turkish-American scientist on the team that produced the first image of a black hole, is the bearer worth naming a daughter after.

Fidan

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Sapling, young tree
• Pronunciation: fee-DAHN

Fidan is the Turkish word for a sapling, the young tree you plant and wait on. It is a plain, hopeful, entirely native word, and it does exactly what a name should do.

Turkish keeps a small stand of growing-things names: Filiz for a sprout, Fidan for the sapling, Defne for the grown laurel. Together they read like stages of the same idea.

The name is widely used in Azerbaijan as well as Turkey, which is common for the Turkic vocabulary names on this list.

Filiz

• Origin: Turkish, from Greek
• Meaning: Sprout, shoot
• Pronunciation: fee-LEEZ

Filiz means a sprout or shoot, the first green growth off a stem, and it reached Turkish from Greek. It has nothing to do with Felicia or Felix despite what a lot of baby name pages claim; the roots are unrelated.

In Turkish the word carries the sense of something just beginning, which is why it was so popular with mid-century parents.

Actress Filiz Akin was one of the biggest stars of Turkish cinema’s Yesilcam era, and musicologist Filiz Ali, daughter of the writer Sabahattin Ali, gave the name a scholarly side.

Gamze

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Dimple
• Pronunciation: gahm-ZEH

Gamze is the Turkish word for the dimple that appears when someone smiles. It is a small, specific, affectionate thing to name a daughter after, and it is squarely a girl’s name in Turkey.

Ottoman poetry stretched the word further, using gamze for a sidelong glance that wounds the onlooker, so the literary sense is closer to a flirtatious look than to a cheek.

Middle-distance runner Gamze Bulut and footballer Gamze Nur Yaman are two current bearers, both women.

The final e is voiced, gahm-ZEH, which keeps it from collapsing into the English word game.

Gokcen

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Sky blue, azure
• Pronunciation: gurk-CHEN
• Popularity: Gokce ranked #5 in Turkey in 2024

Gokcen is built on gok, the Turkish word for sky, and belongs with Gokce, which means azure or sky blue and ranked #5 in Turkey in 2024. The related Goksu joins sky to su, water.

Its most famous bearer changed what the name means to Turkish ears. Sabiha Gokcen, adopted daughter of Ataturk, became one of the world’s first female combat pilots in the 1930s; Istanbul’s second international airport carries her name.

That is an unusually direct line from a name to a national landmark, and it is why Gokcen reads as ambitious rather than merely pretty.

Gul

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Rose
• Pronunciation: GEWL

Gul is the Turkish word for a rose, borrowed from Persian, and it is the single most productive element in Turkish naming. Nothing else generates as many names.

The list runs long: Gulay is rose moon, Gulcan rose soul, Gulnur rose light, Gulistan rose garden, Gulsah royal rose, Songul last rose, Birgul one rose, Nurgul radiant rose. Every one of them is in real use.

On its own it is one syllable with the front-rounded Turkish u, so GEWL rather than GOOL. Short, floral and about as Turkish as a name can be.

Gulizar

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Rose garden
• Pronunciation: gew-lee-ZAR

Gulizar is the Turkish form of Persian golzar, a rose garden. It is the grandest member of the gul family and the one that sounds most like a place you could walk into.

You will also see it glossed as rosy-cheeked, which comes from reading the second element as izar, cheek, rather than zar, garden. Both readings circulate in Turkish.

The Kurdish folk song Gulizar keeps it current in southeastern Turkey, where the name is especially common.

Gunseli

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Flood of daylight
• Pronunciation: gewn-seh-LEE

Gunseli joins gun, day or sunlight, to sel, a flood or torrent. Not a ray of sun, a flood of it, which is a much bolder image than most sun names attempt.

It is rare even in Turkey and reads mid-century there, a name from the decades when Turkish parents were building fresh compounds out of ordinary words.

Gunseli Basar, crowned Miss Europe in 1952, is the bearer who fixed it in Turkish memory.

Haleh

• Origin: Persian
• Meaning: Halo, the ring around the moon
• Pronunciation: hah-LEH

Haleh is Persian for the halo that rings the moon on a humid night. The Turkish spelling is Hale, and the Arabic source name is Hala.

It sits alongside Aylin and Aiyla in the moon group but describes the light around the moon rather than the moon itself, which is a finer distinction than most naming traditions bother with.

Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari and Turkish film actress Hale Soygazi carry the two main spellings between them.

Harika

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Wonderful, marvelous
• Pronunciation: hah-ree-KAH

Harika is the everyday Turkish word for wonderful, inherited from Ottoman Turkish and before that from Arabic khariqa, something that breaks the natural order, a marvel.

Turkish speakers say it constantly, the way English speakers say fantastic, so the name is warm and familiar rather than grand. That gap between the literal etymology and the daily use is most of its charm.

The stress lands on the final syllable, hah-ree-KAH. Said with English stress on the first, it becomes a different word entirely.

Havva

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Turkish form of Eve
• Pronunciation: hahv-VAH

Havva is the Turkish form of Eve, arriving through Arabic Hawwa from Hebrew Chawwah, which is tied to the word for living. It names the first woman in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition alike.

Turkish doubles the v, and both are sounded, which gives the name a weight the English Eve does not have. Alongside Adem it makes the oldest pairing in the tradition.

It reads as devout and old-fashioned in Turkey, the kind of name skipping a generation the way Hazel and Ada did in English.

Hayrünnisa

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Best of women
• Pronunciation: hi-rewn-nee-SAH

Hayrünnisa comes from Arabic khayr al-nisa, the best of women, joining hayr, good, to nisa, women. It is an honorific applied in Islamic tradition to Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter.

It belongs to a small family of nisa compounds that includes Mehrunnisa and Zebunnisa, all of them Ottoman and Mughal court names rather than village ones.

Hayrünnisa Gul, wife of the eleventh president, was Turkey’s first lady from 2007 to 2014, which put the name back in the news after decades out of use.

At five syllables it is the longest name here by some distance, and Turkish families almost always shorten it to Hayru or Nisa.

Hazal

• Origin: Kurdish or Turkish
• Meaning: Gazelle, or autumn
• Pronunciation: hah-ZAHL
• Popularity: #7,621 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (14 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 31% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Hazal has two competing origins and neither has won. It may come from Kurdish xezal, a gazelle, or from a Turkish word for autumn, and both readings are common in Turkey.

It ranked #55 in Turkey in 2024, so whichever way you read it the name is in current use rather than archived. The separate name Hazan means autumn outright, without the ambiguity.

Actress Hazal Kaya, who broke through as a teenager in Turkish television, is the reason for much of that popularity.

Hülya

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Daydream, reverie
• Pronunciation: hewl-YAH

Hülya means daydream or reverie, the pleasant kind of drifting off rather than the melancholy kind. It is one of the few abstract-state names in Turkish and easily the most romantic.

The word came into Turkish from Arabic and originally carried a medical sense closer to melancholia, which the language softened over time into something wistful.

Hülya Avsar and Hülya Kocyigit were two of the biggest names in Turkish film for decades, which is why the name reads as glamorous and slightly retro at home.

Idil

• Origin: Turkic
• Meaning: The old Turkic name of the Volga river
• Pronunciation: ee-DEEL

Idil is the old Turkic name for the Volga, the river that ran through the heartland of the Volga Bulgars and the Golden Horde. Naming a daughter Idil is closer to naming her Danube or Nile than to naming her after a word.

There is also a town called Idil in Sirnak province in southeastern Turkey, and Somali uses an unrelated Idil meaning complete. Same spelling, separate names.

Pianist Idil Biret, a child prodigy who recorded the complete Beethoven and Chopin catalogs, is the bearer Turkish families think of first.

Ipek

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Silk
• Pronunciation: ee-PEK
• Popularity: #10,423 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (9 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 43% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ipek is the Turkish word for silk, and it ranked #31 in Turkey in 2024. Bursa, Turkey’s old silk-weaving capital, sat at the western end of the Silk Road, so the word carries a good deal of local history.

It is a texture name rather than a flower or a star, which makes it unusual on any list. Short, soft and a little luxurious.

It is also in use in Azerbaijan, Albania, Turkmenistan and Bosnia, the same Ottoman footprint most Turkish vocabulary names follow.

Irmak

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: River
• Pronunciation: uhr-MAHK
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2006 at #15,864 (6 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Irmak is the Turkish word for a river, specifically a large one; the Kizilirmak is the longest river inside Turkey. It ranked #96 in Turkey in 2024.

Turkish gives parents two river names, and they are not interchangeable. Nehir, ranked #19 in 2024, is the general word; Irmak is the bigger, older, more native one.

The opening vowel is the dotless Turkish i, a sound English does not have, which is the one obstacle this otherwise simple name puts in front of an English speaker.

Işıl

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Bright, sparkling
• Pronunciation: uh-SHUHL

Işıl is an old Turkish adjective meaning bright or sparkling. It no longer stands alone in ordinary speech and survives in the doubled form isil isil, used of something gleaming, so the name preserves a word the language otherwise let go.

Both vowels are the dotless Turkish i and the s takes a cedilla, giving roughly uh-SHUHL. This is the hardest name on the list for an English speaker to pronounce or to spell. Basketball player Işıl Alben and academic Ayse Işıl Karakas are its best-known bearers.

Jale

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Dew
• Pronunciation: zhah-LEH

Jale is the Turkish form of Persian zhaleh, dew, and you will also see it as Jaleh or Zhaleh. The Turkish j is the sound in measure, so it opens zhah rather than jay.

It is one of a handful of Turkish names built on tiny natural things, next to Damla for a water drop and Kar for snow. Small, quiet, and precise.

Afife Jale broke real ground: in the 1920s she became the first Muslim Turkish woman to act on stage, at a time when it was illegal for her to do so. Turkey’s leading theater awards carry her name.

Archaeologist Jale Inan, who excavated at Perge and Side for half a century, is the other bearer worth knowing.

Kadriye

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Worth, value
• Pronunciation: kahd-ree-YEH

Kadriye is the feminine form of Kadri, from Arabic qadr, worth or measure. The -iye ending is a standard Turkish feminizer that also gives Fikriye, Nuriye and Sabriye.

The same root names Kadir Gecesi, the Night of Power in the last ten days of Ramadan, when the Quran is said to have been first revealed. Girls born that night are still given the name. There is also a resort town called Kadriye near Belek on the Antalya coast.

Kamelya

• Origin: Turkish, from Latin
• Meaning: Camellia, the flower
• Pronunciation: kah-MEL-yah

Kamelya is the Turkish spelling of Camellia, the flowering evergreen in the tea family. The plant was named for Georg Joseph Kamel, the Jesuit botanist who catalogued Philippine flora, so the flower is really a surname first.

Bulgarian and Ukrainian use Kameliya and Kamaliya for the same flower, which is why the name turns up across the Black Sea region.

Among flower names it is one of the less worn options, and the Turkish spelling gives it an angle the English Camellia lacks.

Kiraz

• Origin: Turkish, from Greek
• Meaning: Cherry
• Pronunciation: kee-RAHZ

Kiraz is the Turkish word for cherry, borrowed from Greek. Turkey grows more cherries than any other country, and the fruit turns up constantly in Turkish idiom, so the word is thoroughly at home.

It is a fruit name rather than a flower name, which puts it in company with Cagla, the green almond, and gives it a fresher, tarter feel than the floral picks nearby.

It also serves as a surname, and it turns up as a place name in Izmir province.

Lara

• Origin: Russian, in wide Turkish use
• Meaning: Short form of Larisa
• Pronunciation: LAH-rah
• Popularity: #693 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (409 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 41% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Lara is a Russian short form of Larisa. English speakers met it through Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago in 1957, and the 1965 film pushed it into wide use in the United States within four years.

It is not native Turkish, but it is thoroughly naturalized there, helped by how neatly it fits Turkish sound patterns.

The international numbers are strong: #10 in Croatia and #11 in Hungary in 2025, #17 in Spain and #19 in Austria in 2024, #691 in the United States.

Four letters, two syllables, no ambiguity anywhere. It is the least explaining you will ever do.

Leila

• Origin: Persian and Arabic
• Meaning: Night
• Pronunciation: LAY-lah
• Popularity: #259 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (1,193 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 5% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Leila is a variant of Layla and the usual Persian transcription. It means night, and the Turkish form Leyla ranked #59 in Turkey in 2024.

The name carries the most famous love story in the Islamic world. Layla and Majnun, the seventh-century Arabic tale retold by Nizami in Persian, is the region’s Romeo and Juliet, and Majnun is literally the man driven mad by loving her.

Lord Byron used it in The Giaour in 1813 and Don Juan in 1819, which is how the spelling with an i entered English. It ranked #259 in the United States in 2025.

Laila, Layla, Leyla and Leilah are all in circulation, so decide which spelling you want before the birth certificate.

Melek

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Angel
• Pronunciation: meh-LEK
• Popularity: #4,139 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (35 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 211% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Melek is the Turkish word for an angel, from Arabic malak. It ranked #74 in Turkey in 2024.

It is one letter away from Melike, queen, and the two are unrelated: Melek comes from the root for messenger, Melike from the root for king. Turkish speakers hear the difference immediately; English speakers usually do not.

Table tennis player Melek Hu, born in China and competing for Turkey, and former ambassador Melek Sina Baydur are among its bearers.

Melike

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Queen
• Pronunciation: meh-lee-KEH

Melike is the Turkish form of Malika, the feminine of malik, king, so it means queen in the fullest sense, a woman who rules rather than a king’s wife.

History backs that up. Melike Mama Hatun ruled the Saltukid emirate around Erzurum at the end of the twelfth century in her own right, and the mausoleum she built still stands in Tercan.

Three syllables with the stress at the end give it a stately rhythm. Melek is the near-neighbor to watch out for.

Mercan

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Coral
• Pronunciation: mer-JAHN
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2024 at #16,881 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Mercan is the Turkish word for coral, borrowed from Arabic marjan, and it ranked #88 in Turkey in 2024. Coral was traded as a gemstone across the Ottoman world, so the word carries the sense of something precious rather than merely marine.

It sits with Elmas, diamond, and Inci, pearl, in Turkish naming’s small jewelry box.

The c is a j, so mer-JAHN. It is also a common Turkish surname, including in Northern Cyprus.

Meryem

• Origin: Turkish, from Aramaic
• Meaning: Turkish form of Mary
• Pronunciation: mer-YEM
• Popularity: #4,836 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (28 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 56% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Meryem is the Turkish form of Mary, and it ranked #18 in Turkey in 2024. Mary is the only woman named directly in the Quran, where a whole chapter carries her name, so Meryem is honored by Muslim and Christian Turks alike.

The House of the Virgin Mary near Ephesus, on Turkey’s Aegean coast, is a pilgrimage site for both faiths, which gives the name a specifically Turkish anchor.

Maryam, Meriem and Miriam are the neighboring forms. Turkish-German actress Meryem Uzerli is the name’s most visible modern bearer.

Miray

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Possibly commander of the moon
• Pronunciation: mee-RIGH
• Popularity: #7,036 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (16 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 152% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Miray ranked #15 in Turkey in 2024, which makes it one of the most current names on this list. It is usually read as mir, commander or prince, joined to ay, moon, though the first element is not certain.

It fits the pattern of short modern ay compounds that Turkish parents keep inventing: Simay is silver moon, Nuray bright moon, Ilkay new moon, Sanay famous moon.

The ending rhymes with eye, so mee-RIGH rather than mee-RAY. That one vowel is worth teaching people up front.

Müjde

• Origin: Turkish, from Persian
• Meaning: Good news
• Pronunciation: mewzh-DEH

Müjde is the Turkish form of Persian mozhdeh, meaning good news, specifically the news you reward the messenger for bringing. Turkish keeps that custom in the word mujdelik, the gift owed to whoever tells you.

Naming a daughter Müjde says something plain about how her arrival was received, which is a better piece of sentiment than most names manage.

Film actress Müjde Ar, one of the defining figures of Turkish cinema in the 1980s, is the name’s best-known bearer.

Nadia

• Origin: Slavic and Arabic
• Meaning: Hope, or tender
• Pronunciation: NAH-dee-ah

Nadia has two separate sources that met in the middle. The Slavic one is a short form of Nadezhda, hope; the Arabic one, Nadiya, means moist or tender. Both are in use across Turkey and the wider region.

It is not a Turkish name in origin, and it is worth being straight about that. What it is is one of the most portable names in Europe, at home from Moscow to Cairo without a change of spelling.

Nadja, Nadya, Nadiya and Nadine are the variants. Gymnast Nadia Comaneci, who scored the first perfect ten at the 1976 Olympics, is still the association most people have.

Nasrin

• Origin: Persian
• Meaning: Wild rose, dog rose
• Pronunciation: nahs-REEN

Nasrin is Persian for the wild rose, the single-petalled dog rose rather than the cultivated bloom. The Turkish form is Nesrin, and Nasreen and Nisreen circulate in Arabic and Urdu.

It is a quieter kind of flower name than Gul, and Persian poetry uses the two differently: the gul is the beloved, the nasrin is the wild thing growing at the edge of the garden.

Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, whose work on women’s rights forced her into exile, is the name’s most prominent bearer.

Nihal

• Origin: Arabic and Persian
• Meaning: Sapling, young plant
• Pronunciation: nee-HAHL

Nihal is used as a girl’s name across Turkey and Egypt, with the Persian sense of a sapling or young plant sitting alongside an Arabic reading tied to drinking one’s fill.

It is a homograph rather than one name with two meanings: in Punjabi and among Sikh families Nihal is a masculine name meaning fulfilled or content, which is a separate word entirely. In Turkish it belongs with Fidan and Filiz among the growing-plant names, and it is the shortest of the three.

Oya

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Needle lace
• Pronunciation: oh-YAH

Oya is the Turkish word for the fine needle lace worked along the edge of a headscarf, made in three-dimensional flowers and leaves. Turkish women historically used the motifs as a code, so a particular flower on a scarf edge could announce a mood or a message.

That makes it one of the few names on this list drawn from a craft rather than from nature or scripture, and it carries a specifically female history with it.

The unrelated Yoruba goddess Oya, who governs wind and storms, shares the spelling by coincidence.

Oya Arasli, a constitutional law professor and later a deputy in the Turkish parliament, is a well-known bearer.

Özlem

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Longing, yearning
• Pronunciation: urz-LEM

Özlem means longing, the ache of missing someone, and it is a purely native Turkish coinage from the verb ozlemek, to miss. It is an unusually bittersweet thing to name a child.

Turkish carries that feeling the way Portuguese carries saudade, and the name is common enough there that the melancholy has worn smooth.

Özlem Tureci, the physician and immunologist who co-founded BioNTech and helped develop the first approved mRNA vaccine against covid-19, is the bearer worth knowing.

The o is the front-rounded Turkish vowel, closer to the vowel in her than to the one in oh.

Pınar

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Spring, fountain
• Pronunciation: puh-NAR

Pınar is the Turkish word for a natural spring, the place where water comes out of the ground. It is a plain native noun with no borrowed layer, and there is no connection to any French or Latin word despite what some name pages claim.

It fits into Turkish water naming as the source, where Damla is the drop, Irmak the river and Deniz the sea.

Sociologist Pınar Selek and singer Pınar Aylin are current bearers. The first vowel is the dotless Turkish i, so puh-NAR rather than pee-NAR.

Reyhan

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Sweet basil
• Pronunciation: ray-HAHN

Reyhan is the Turkish form of Rayhana, from Arabic rayhan, sweet basil. Basil is grown on Turkish windowsills as much for the scent as for cooking, so the name reads as fragrance rather than food.

In Turkey it is used for girls; the masculine Reyhan and the related Rayyan belong to other languages in the region, which is where the confusion about its gender comes from.

It sits alongside Burcu among the Turkish scent names, and it doubles as a place name in Iran and Lebanon.

Sahar

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Dawn
• Pronunciation: seh-HER

Sahar is Arabic for dawn, the last dark hour before sunrise rather than sunrise itself. The Turkish form is Seher, pronounced seh-HER, and it is the form you will actually hear in Turkey.

In Ramadan the pre-dawn meal is the sahur, from the same root, so the word is tied to a specific quiet hour that most Turkish families know well.

Turkish, Azerbaijani, Persian, Urdu and Pashto speakers all use it, making it one of the more widely shared names here.

Selda

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Modern coinage, no settled meaning
• Pronunciation: sel-DAH

Selda is a modern Turkish name without an agreed etymology. It is often filed with Germanic Zelda, a short form of Griselda, but that is a resemblance rather than a source, and honest Turkish name references leave the meaning open.

What it does have is a bearer who defines it. Selda Bagcan, the folk singer and saz player jailed three times in the 1980s for her protest songs, is a national figure whose recordings have since been sampled worldwide.

Two syllables, familiar sounds, and an association with someone who did not back down.

Selma

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Peaceful, safe
• Pronunciation: sel-MAH
• Popularity: #2,810 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (61 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 10% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Selma is the Turkish form of Arabic Salma, from the root s-l-m that also gives salam, peace. That is the line most Turkish families follow.

A separate European Selma runs alongside it, of unknown origin and possibly a short form of Anselma, popularized by James Macpherson’s Ossian poems, where Selma is Ossian’s castle. Two names, one spelling.

The Nordic branch is thriving: Selma ranked #8 in Sweden and #11 in Norway in 2025, helped along by Selma Lagerlof, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

It ranked #99 in Turkey back in 1995, so at home it reads as a name from a slightly earlier generation.

Taahira

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Pure, chaste
• Pronunciation: tah-hee-RAH

Taahira is the feminine of tahir, Arabic for pure or chaste. The Turkish spelling is Tahire, and Tahira and Tahirah are the usual international forms.

The doubled a in this spelling marks the long vowel of the Arabic original, which is why the name looks longer here than it sounds.

The nineteenth-century Persian poet and theologian Tahirih, one of the first women in her world to appear unveiled in public and to argue publicly for women’s education, is the historical bearer worth reading about.

Taliah

• Origin: Hebrew and Aramaic
• Meaning: Dew from heaven; also a lamb
• Pronunciation: tah-LEE-ah

Taliah comes from Hebrew tal, dew, with a second element pointing to God, so the usual reading is dew from heaven. In Aramaic the same shape gives a word for a young lamb.

It is Hebrew rather than Turkish in origin, but it sits comfortably beside the region’s names and shares an image with Jale, the Turkish word for dew.

Talia, Tahlia, Talya and Taleah are the spellings in circulation, which makes this a name you will spell aloud often.

Vesile

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Means, occasion
• Pronunciation: veh-see-LEH

Vesile came into Turkish from Arabic wasila and means a means or an occasion, the thing through which something else becomes possible. Its plural is vesileler.

The Quranic use is more specific: a wasila is the link or approach by which one draws nearer to God. That gives the name a devotional reading alongside the everyday one. It is uncommon even in Turkey and reads as traditional there. Turkish speakers also use it warmly in conversation, calling a happy accident a guzel bir vesile, a good occasion.

Yasmin

• Origin: Persian and Arabic
• Meaning: Jasmine
• Pronunciation: yahs-MEEN
• Popularity: #959 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (269 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 46% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Yasmin means jasmine in Arabic and Hebrew, from Persian yasamin. The Turkish form is Yasemin, and English Jasmine traces back to the same Persian word by a longer route through French.

So Yasmin is not an alternative spelling of Jasmine so much as the older form of it. The opening is a clean y, yahs-MEEN.

It ranked #81 in Spain in 2024 and #318 in England and Wales in 2025. Yasmine, Yasmeen and Yazmin are the main variants.

Yildiz

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Star
• Pronunciation: yuhl-DUHZ

Yildiz is the Turkish word for a star. It is the plainest possible star name, the everyday noun with nothing added.

It is also written across Istanbul: Yildiz Palace, the last residence of the Ottoman sultans, and the wooded Yildiz Park below it both carry the name.

Both i vowels are the dotless Turkish kind, so the whole word sits in a register English does not quite have, roughly yuhl-DUHZ.

In Turkey it is given mainly to girls, though it is used for boys as well, and it is extremely common as a surname.

Zehra

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Brilliant, luminous
• Pronunciation: zeh-RAH
• Popularity: #5,403 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (24 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 14% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Zehra is the Turkish and Urdu form of Arabic Zahra, meaning brilliant or luminous. It ranked #33 in Turkey in 2024.

Az-Zahra, the radiant one, is the traditional epithet of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, which is why the name is especially common in devout families across Turkey, the Balkans and South Asia.

Zara, Zahrah and Zohra are the neighboring forms; the Turkish spelling with the e is the one that marks it as Turkish rather than Arabic.

Folk singer Zehra Bilir, who recorded Anatolian and Armenian songs through the middle of the twentieth century, is its landmark bearer.

Zeynep

• Origin: Turkish, from Arabic
• Meaning: Turkish form of Zaynab
• Pronunciation: ZAY-nep
• Popularity: #2,098 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (90 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 152% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Zeynep is the Turkish form of Zaynab and ranked #3 in Turkey in 2024. Leaving it off a list of Turkish girl names would be like leaving Olivia off an English one.

The Arabic source is usually connected to a fragrant desert flowering plant, though the etymology is not fully settled. Zaynab was the name of two of Muhammad’s daughters and of one of his wives, which is why it spread so widely.

Turkish stresses the first syllable, ZAY-nep, and the ready-made short forms are Zeyno and Zey.

It has held near the top of the Turkish charts for two decades, so a Zeynep born today will share her name with plenty of classmates in Istanbul and almost none in London.