Türkiye Soyadları A sourced dictionary of Turkish surnames

Category·Nature and landscape·65 surnames

Time and seasons

Surnames
65
in this dictionary
In the national top 30
0
ADNKS 2025

How did these surnames come about?

Was the ancestor of a family called Kış, “winter”, born in winter? Perhaps. But the surname cannot tell us. Time and season surnames invite this kind of guess more than any other group, which is exactly why they need careful reading. A surname may reflect a birth time; another may only evoke a pleasant image. Which applies is never stated without documents.

Seasons

Two of the Turkish season words are old and Turkic: kış (winter) and yaz (summer). Güz is Turkic too, the old word for autumn. Bahar, “spring”, comes from Persian bahār. Sonbahar, the everyday word for autumn, is itself son (“end”) plus bahar. Turkic and Persian roots are thus woven together in the season names. As surnames Bahar and Güz stand alone; Bahar is also a common woman's name.

Times of day

Sabah (morning) and akşam (evening) are everyday Turkish words; sabah is generally taken as Arabic in origin. Seher comes from Arabic seḥer and names the hour just before sunrise. Gündüz, “daytime”, is a Turkic word derived from gün. Akgündüz is a compound with ak, “white”: “bright daytime”. Gece, “night”, belongs to the same set.

There is a boundary here. Tan and şafak also mark the start of the day, but they are treated as light in the sky and so belong to the celestial hub.

Bayram and çağ

Bayram means “feast day, holiday”, religious or national. There are several views on its origin and no settled explanation; the etymology is disputed. As a surname Bayram also continues what was once a common given name. Çağ means “age, period”. Words like an (moment) and erken (early) can join this hub in their time sense.

Shape

Most of these surnames are single words without a suffix. When they form compounds, a colour comes first: Akgündüz, Karakış. Harmony stops at the boundary between the two words. In Akgündüz the back a is followed by front ü vowels, which is perfectly natural for a Turkish compound.

The 1934 angle

The Surname Regulation was adopted in December 1934 and applied from January 1935. The Surname Law itself had entered into force six months after its publication. Choosing a surname was a task squeezed into a short calendar. Why a family picked a season or a time of day within that calendar is not written in the records.

Why it is interesting

Time surnames show how Turkish names time, not what happened in a family. Loanwords such as Bahar and Seher sitting on the same list as old Turkic Kış and Gündüz are part of that picture.

Sources1,2,3,4

All surnames in this category

#SurnameMeaningOriginLetters
01 Akbayram bright festival Persian 8
02 Akgündüz bright daytime Turkic 8
03 Aktan white dawn, first light Turkic 5
04 Akyıl white year, good year Turkic 5
05 Albayram red + festival Persian 8
06 Arkun slow; next year Turkic 5
07 Aygündüz moon and daytime Turkic 8
08 Azar scolding; the month of March Persian 4
09 Bahar spring Persian 5
10 Bayram festival, feast day Turkic 6
11 Bayramoğlu son of Bayram Turkic 10
12 Bayrı ancient, of old Turkic 5
13 Bengi eternal Turkic 5
14 Bengü eternal, everlasting Turkic 5
15 Bitim ending, conclusion Turkic 5
16 Bozyıl grey year Turkic 6
17 Çağ era, age Turkic 3
18 Çağan white; pure Mongolic 5
19 Çağın lightning Turkic 5
20 Doğuş birth, rising Turkic 5
21 Ekim sowing; October Turkic 4
22 Ergeç sooner or later Turkic 5
23 Erken early Turkic 5
24 Ertan man of the dawn Turkic 5
25 Ertegün the next day, morning Turkic 7
26 Erten morning, early hour Turkic 5
27 Gülbahar spring rose Persian 8
28 Gün sun; day Turkic 3
29 Günaydın good morning; bright day Turkic 8
30 Gündoğan rising sun Turkic 8
31 Gündüz daytime Turkic 6
32 Güngörmüş seasoned, experienced Turkic 9
33 Günlü sunny Turkic 5
34 Günsav word of the day Turkic 6
35 Ilıman mild, temperate Greek 6
36 İyigün good day, good days Turkic 6
37 Kızıltan red glow of dawn Turkic 8
38 Mengü eternal, immortal Turkic 5
39 Mevsim season Arabic 6
40 Mola rest, break French 4
41 Navruz Nowruz, spring festival Persian 6
42 Ocak hearth, fireplace Turkic 4
43 Öğün mealtime; take pride Turkic 4
44 Ömür life, lifetime Arabic 4
45 Özbahar true spring Persian 7
46 Özgündüz pure daylight Turkic 8
47 Öztaner true Taner (“dawn hero”) Turkic 7
48 Saat hour, clock; bliss (Saʿd) Arabic 4
49 Safer second month of the Islamic year Arabic 5
50 Sürgit for ever Turkic 6
51 Şafak dawn, daybreak Arabic 5
52 Şengün happy day Turkic 6
53 Tan dawn Turkic 3
54 Taneri man of the dawn Turkic 6
55 Tanlar dawns Turkic 6
56 Tansu dawn water Turkic 5
57 Tanyalçın sheer cliff at dawn Turkic 9
58 Tanyeri dawn, daybreak Turkic 7
59 Üçgün three days Turkic 5
60 Yaz summer Turkic 3
61 Yeltan dawn breeze Turkic 6
62 Yeni new Turkic 4
63 Yenidoğan newborn Turkic 9
64 Yenigün new day Turkic 7
65 Zaman time, era Persian 5
The list grows as surnames are added to the dictionary.

Common questions

Does the surname Kış mean an ancestor was born in winter?

It might, but the surname cannot show it. A surname may reflect a birth time or simply a pleasant image; without documents nobody can say which.

Is Bahar a Turkish word?

It is everyday Turkish today but comes from Persian bahār. Kış, yaz and güz are Turkic.

What time of day is Seher?

Seher, from Arabic, is the hour just before sunrise.

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 Kanunu (Kanun No. 2525)
  4. 4T.C. Resmî Gazete / Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (mevzuat.gov.tr), Soyadı Nizamnamesi (Bakanlar Kurulu Kararı 2/1759)