Türkiye Soyadları A sourced dictionary of Turkish surnames

Category·Nature and landscape·176 surnames

Mountains, rocks and stones

Surnames
176
in this dictionary
In the national top 30
24
ADNKS 2025
Most common
Kaya
People
899,7224
Kaya

How did these surnames come about?

The second most common surname in Türkiye is a rock. According to TÜİK ADNKS 2025, 899,722 people carry Kaya, which ranks 2nd nationally. The word has meant the same since Old Turkic: a large mass of hard stone. Why any single family chose it is unknown, but the associations are plain enough: firmness, steadiness, permanence.

Rock, stone, mountain

Surnames in this hub name landforms and stone. Taş, “stone”, is as old a Turkish word as kaya. Dağ (mountain), tepe (hill), bayır (slope), yamaç (hillside) and doruk (summit) belong to the same family. Yalçın is slightly different. The TDK dictionary gives it as an adjective, “steep, sheer, rocky”, so it describes a quality of a rock face rather than naming a thing. Doruk is the highest point of a mountain. Used on their own, all these words entered the registers without any suffix.

Compounds with colour words

Most of the hub's size comes from compounds. A colour element such as Kara-, Ak- or Boz- stands before the head: Karakaya “black rock”, Akkaya “white rock”, Karataş “black stone”, Bozdağ “grey mountain”. One of them, Aktaş, ranks 30th nationally in TÜİK ADNKS 2025 with 222,711 bearers. In these forms the meaning sits in the final noun, and the hub follows it. In Demirtaş the first element is a metal, but the head is still taş.

The sound pattern has one quirk. Vowel harmony is not required across a compound, yet the most frequent members happen to be back-vowelled throughout: Karakaya, Akkaya, Aktaş, Bozdağ. Nothing changes at the seam either; Akkaya is spelled with a double k.

1934 and the spread of compounds

In its 1934 text, Article 14 of the Surname Regulation said that if unrelated families in the same village or town chose the same surname, the first applicant kept it and the others had to change theirs. Those who refused were to be told apart by an adjective such as büyük or küçük, or by another addition. One could argue that this rule helps explain the many Karakaya, Akkaya and Sarıkaya variants. There is, however, no general record of why individual families picked a given form.

Place name or word?

Names of particular mountains, such as Uludağ, Erciyes or Ilgaz, belong with the place-name hubs. Agent nouns in -CI, like Taşçı “stonemason” or Kayacı, sit with the crafts. What remains here is a landform or stone word in its dictionary sense.

Sources1,2,3,4

Which of them are most common?

  1. 2 Kaya 899,722
  2. 30 Aktaş 222,711
Members in the national top 30, people (TÜİK ADNKS 2025).

All surnames in this category

#SurnameMeaningOriginRankLetters
01 Kaya rock, crag Turkic 2 4
02 Aktaş white stone Turkic 30 5
03 Adatepe island hill Turkic – 7
04 Akbayır white slope Turkic – 7
05 Akçakaya whitish rock Turkic – 8
06 Akçal white-speckled; white rocky hill Turkic – 5
07 Akçatepe the pale hill Turkic – 8
08 Akdağ white mountain Turkic – 5
09 Akdaş white stone Turkic – 5
10 Akkaya white rock Turkic – 6
11 Aktepe white hill Turkic – 6
12 Akyar white cliff Turkic – 5
13 Aladağ mottled mountain Turkic – 6
14 Alataş speckled stone Turkic – 6
15 Alkaya red rock Turkic – 6
16 Alpkaya heroic rock Turkic – 7
17 Altaş red stone Turkic – 5
18 Altındağ golden mountain; a district of Ankara Turkic – 8
19 Altınkaya golden rock Turkic – 9
20 Altıntaş golden stone Turkic – 8
21 Altundağ golden mountain Turkic – 8
22 Altunkaya golden rock Turkic – 9
23 Altuntaş golden stone Turkic – 8
24 Arslantaş lion stone Turkic – 9
25 Aslantaş lion stone Turkic – 8
26 Aytaş moonstone Turkic – 5
27 Babadağ place name: baba + dağ Turkic – 7
28 Balkan wooded mountain range; the Balkans Turkic – 6
29 Balkaya honey rock Turkic – 7
30 Başkaya the chief rock Turkic – 7
31 Bayır hillside, slope Turkic – 5
32 Bel waist; mountain pass Turkic – 3
33 Belen mountain pass Turkic – 5
34 Bengütaş eternal stone Turkic – 8
35 Beştaş five stones; the five-stone game Turkic – 6
36 Bozdağ grey mountain Turkic – 6
37 Bozkaya grey rock Turkic – 7
38 Boztepe grey hill Turkic – 7
39 Büyükkaya big rock Turkic – 9
40 Çambel pine-covered pass Turkic – 6
41 Çamlıbel pine-covered pass Turkic – 8
42 Çankaya hill and district name in Ankara Turkic – 7
43 Çatak ravine between two slopes Turkic – 5
44 Çetinkaya hard rock, unyielding crag Turkic – 9
45 Dağ mountain Turkic – 3
46 Dağaşan mountain-crosser Turkic – 7
47 Dağcı mountaineer Turkic – 5
48 Dağdaş mountain companion; mountain stone Turkic – 6
49 Dağdelen mountain-piercer, mighty Turkic – 8
50 Dağdeviren mountain-toppler, mighty Turkic – 10
51 Dağlarca like the mountains Turkic – 8
52 Dağlaroğlu son of the mountains Turkic – 10
53 Dağlı mountain-dweller, highlander Turkic – 5
54 Dağtekin a prince firm as a mountain Turkic – 8
55 Daş stone Turkic – 3
56 Daşdemir firm as stone and iron Turkic – 8
57 Daştan made of stone Turkic – 6
58 Deliktaş holed stone Turkic – 8
59 Demirdağ iron mountain Turkic – 8
60 Demirkaya iron rock Turkic – 9
61 Demirtaş iron stone, unbreakable Turkic – 8
62 Dikmen conical hill Turkic – 6
63 Doruk summit, peak Turkic – 5
64 Erciyes Mount Erciyes Greek – 7
65 Erenkaya rock of the saints Turkic – 8
66 Erkaya man of rock Turkic – 6
67 Ertaş hero firm as stone Turkic – 5
68 Esendağlı from Esendağ Turkic – 9
69 Gedik breach; mountain pass Turkic – 5
70 Göktaş meteorite; blue stone Turkic – 6
71 Göktepe blue hill, sky-high hill Turkic – 7
72 Gönültaş heart-stone; kindred spirit Turkic – 8
73 Göztepe place name: eye + hill Turkic – 7
74 Granit granite French – 6
75 Gümüşdağ silver mountain Turkic – 8
76 Ilgaz Mount Ilgaz Other – 5
77 İnkaya cave rock Turkic – 6
78 İpekkaya silken rock Turkic – 8
79 Karadağ black mountain Turkic – 7
80 Karadağlı from Karadağ Turkic – 9
81 Karakaya black rock Turkic – 8
82 Karataş black stone Turkic – 7
83 Karatepe black hill Turkic – 8
84 Karayalçın dark sheer cliff Turkic – 10
85 Karlıdağ snowy mountain Turkic – 8
86 Karpat the Carpathian Mountains Other – 6
87 Kartaltepe eagle hill Turkic – 10
88 Kayaalp hero firm as rock Turkic – 7
Rank: TÜİK ADNKS 2025 national top 30. The list grows as surnames are added to the dictionary.4

Common questions

What does the surname Kaya mean?

Kaya is an Old Turkic word for a large mass of hard stone. In TÜİK ADNKS 2025 Kaya is Türkiye's 2nd most common surname, with 899,722 bearers.

Is Yalçın the name of a mountain?

No. The TDK dictionary lists yalçın as an adjective meaning “steep, sheer, rocky”; it describes a rock face rather than naming a place.

Why are Uludağ and Erciyes not in this hub?

They are proper names of specific mountains and are filed with the place-name hubs. This hub covers the general dictionary words for rock and mountain.

Sources

  1. 1Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük
  2. 2Sevan Nişanyan, Nişanyan Sözlük
  3. 3T.C. Resmî Gazete / Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (mevzuat.gov.tr), Soyadı Nizamnamesi (Bakanlar Kurulu Kararı 2/1759)
  4. 4Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TÜİK) · ADNKS, TÜİK Nüfus İsim Portalı: En çok kullanılan soyisimler (ADNKS)