Sarı-

Sarı covers two ideas at once: a colour and a hair colour. The TDK dictionary gives it as ‘yellow’ and also as ‘fair-haired, blond’. It is an adjective in use since Old Turkic.

In surnames sarı stands in front. It is not a suffix, so vowel harmony leaves it alone and it is spelled the same in every compound. The word that follows keeps its own vowels. In Sarıgül, back-vowel sarı sits next to front-vowel gül ‘rose’. The compound is written as one word, and its core meaning lies in the second element.

Two kinds of compound stand out. In the first, the colour describes a thing. Sarıkaya is ‘yellow rock’, Sarıtaş ‘yellow stone’, Sarıgül ‘yellow rose’ and Sarıyıldız ‘yellow star’. In Sarıdoğan the second element has two readings: doğan ‘falcon’ or doğan ‘born, rising’. Which one is meant is disputed. In the second kind, sarı describes a person. Sarıoğlu means ‘son of Sarı’, where Sarı may be a nickname for hair or skin colour. That is a fact about the word. It says nothing about how the bearers look. Sarıhan is built from sarı and han ‘khan’.

Sarıçam needs separate attention. In the TDK dictionary it is the name of a kind of pine. The surname can therefore be read as an established tree name rather than as a fresh ‘yellow + pine’ compound. The same name was also given to a district in Adana.

Some forms invite false splits. Sarık is not sarı plus -k. It comes from the verb sarmak ‘to wrap’ and means ‘turban’, the cloth wound round the head. Sarıca is sarı plus the suffix -ca and means ‘yellowish’. Many villages are also called Sarıca. A surname Sarıca is therefore read as a derivative or a place name, not as a compound. Sarıyer is a district of Istanbul and is treated as a proper name.

Sarı- belongs to the colour group together with Ak-, Kara-, Kızıl- and Boz-. Yet the weight of each compound rests on its second element. Sarıkaya is a rock, Sarıgül a flower. The colour simply adds a quality.