Gök-

Göksu is also known as a river name and reads as ‘blue water’. Gökhan, by contrast, is ‘sky khan’ and points to the sky itself. The two surnames show both senses of gök side by side: ‘blue’ as a colour and ‘sky’ as a place.

The Güncel Türkçe Sözlük gives both senses. The Old Turkic form of the word was kök; modern gök arose through a sound change. In surnames gök is the first word of a compound. As an independent word it does not change under vowel harmony. The second element may have back or front vowels: Gökhan and Gökdemir open with the same element.

The centre of meaning lies in the second element. Gökkaya can be read as ‘sky-coloured rock’ or ‘rock rising to the sky’; either way it names a rock. Göktaş is ‘sky stone’. The dictionary headword göktaşı means ‘meteorite’, and the surname recalls that word. Gökalp is explained as ‘sky hero’ or ‘celestial hero’. Gökdemir combines the sky with iron: ‘sky iron’, or ‘blue iron’ if gök is read as a colour. The doğan of Gökdoğan may be the bird or the participle ‘born, rising’; no source picks one for this name.

Göktürk stands apart. In historical writing it is known as the name of an early Turkic state, and it is analysed as ‘sky Turk’ or ‘blue Turk’. As a surname it uses this historical name as a word.

Some Gök- names are not compounds at all. Gökmen is formed from gök with the suffix -men. Göksel consists of gök and the suffix -sel and is listed in the dictionary as ‘celestial’; its sel is not the word for ‘flood’. Gökçe and Gökçen are fixed words and names, ‘sky-coloured, bluish’ and in older usage ‘lovely’. Each of these is read as one word.

As a colour term, gök also differs from mavi ‘blue’. Mavi came into Turkish from Arabic and rests on an adjective meaning ‘watery, water-coloured’. Gök is a native Turkish word. Where a surname expresses blue, the element is usually gök, and Göksu is the typical case.