How Turkish surnames are formed: roots, prefixes, suffixes and compounds

How do you find the root of a surname?

The first step is to look the whole surname up in the dictionary before splitting it. If the surname is a headword in the Turkish Language Association’s dictionary, its meaning starts there and it is not split. This rule prevents many mistakes:

• Erdem means ‘virtue’; it is not er + dem.
• Özgür means ‘free’, Özel ‘distinguished, special’ and Özlem ‘longing’; none of them is a compound with Öz-.
• Akın means ‘raid’ or ‘rushing flow’ and belongs to the verb akmak ‘to flow’; it has nothing to do with Ak- ‘white’.
• Kartal is the name of a bird, the eagle; it contains no element Kar-.

Surnames that are not dictionary words as a whole are split into their parts. There are two kinds of part. The first are words with a meaning of their own: kaya ‘rock’, demir ‘iron’, taş ‘stone’, öz ‘genuine’, kara ‘black’. The second are suffixes that are never used alone: -cı, -lı, -gil, -ler. On every surname page of this site these parts appear in the “root tree” section, with a dictionary source for each root word.

The language of the root is settled at this step too. Özcan has parts from two languages: Turkish öz ‘own, pure’ and Persian can ‘soul, life’. Mixed compounds like this are normal in Turkish.

How are single-word surnames formed?

Most of the commonest Turkish surnames are a single word. There are three subtypes.

Simple nouns name an object, an animal or a natural phenomenon: Kaya ‘rock’, Demir ‘iron’, Şahin ‘hawk’, Yıldırım ‘thunderbolt’. According to TÜİK ADNKS 2025, Kaya (899,722) and Demir (876,934) rank second and third.

Adjectives name a quality: Kara ‘black, dark’, Çetin ‘tough’, Yavuz ‘formidable, stern’. In older texts yavuz meant ‘bad’; its meaning shifted over time.

Verbal names turn a verb form into a name. The best-known pattern is the negative aorist: yıl- ‘to lose heart’ + -maz = Yılmaz ‘one who does not lose heart’; kork- ‘to fear’ + -maz = Korkmaz ‘fearless’. The positive aorist is used too: yen- ‘to defeat’ + -er = Yener ‘one who prevails’. Güler comes from gül- ‘to smile’: ‘smiling’. Some surnames are whole sentences: Gündoğdu ‘the sun has risen’, Yurtseven ‘one who loves the homeland’. Longer examples of this kind are in unusual Turkish surnames.

What do front elements such as Öz-, Kara- and Ak- add?

Although this site calls them prefixes, Öz-, Kara-, Ak-, Gök- and Ay- are really words with a meaning of their own. As the first word of a compound they qualify the second element. Because they are words, not suffixes, they do not change shape with vowel harmony.

• Öz-: ‘genuine, pure, own’. Four of the 30 most common surnames begin with it: Öztürk (586,831), Özdemir (556,378), Özkan (245,254) and Özcan (233,820), TÜİK ADNKS 2025.
• Kara-: ‘black’; dictionaries also record an archaic sense ‘brave’. Karakaya, Karataş.
• Ak-: ‘white’, figuratively ‘clean, spotless’. Aktaş ranks 30th with 222,711 bearers; Aksoy and Akyol follow the same pattern.
• Gök-: ‘sky, heaven; blue’. Gökhan, Gökalp.
• Er-: ‘man, brave warrior’. Ertürk, Ersoy, Ercan.
• Ay-: ‘moon; radiant, beautiful’. Aydemir.

Colour words are frequent as well: Kızıl-, Boz-, Sarı-, Al-. The other front elements have their own pages: Gür-, Yüce-, Koca-, Şen-, Alp-, Demir- and Kaya-.

What do end elements such as -oğlu, -er, -can and -türk express?

The last element of a surname is usually the centre of its meaning.

• -oğlu: ‘son of’. It is the word oğul ‘son’ with a possessive suffix, and because it is an independent word it does not follow vowel harmony: Terzioğlu, Kocaoğlu. The meaning comes from the base: Hasanoğlu is built on a personal name, Demircioğlu on an occupation. Article 6 of the Surname Regulation says a surname may be used with “(oğlu)”.
• -er: ‘man, brave one’. Özer, Alper. Careful: not every name ending in -er contains this element; Güler and Yener are verb forms.
• -can: Persian cān ‘soul, life; dear one’. Özcan, Ercan, Gökcan.
• -türk: ‘Turk’. Öztürk, Ertürk.
• -soy: ‘lineage, descent’. Aksoy, Ersoy.
• -kan: usually read as ‘blood, lineage’; in some names it is linked with han ‘khan’. Özkan, Gürkan. Erkan, by contrast, comes from Arabic erkân ‘dignitaries’ and does not contain this element.

Concrete words also serve as end elements: -kaya, -taş, -demir, -dağ, -gül, -gün, -han, -el, -ay, -man, -alp, -tekin. The full list is in the affix index.

How do derivational suffixes such as -lı and -cı work?

These are true suffixes: they are never used alone, and they change shape with vowel harmony.

-lı / -li / -lu / -lü does two jobs. Added to a place name it means ‘from there’: Konyalı, İzmirli, Toroslu, Ürgüplü. Added to a noun it means ‘having that thing’: Kutlu ‘fortunate’, Uslu ‘sensible’. Köprülü allows both readings: ‘having a bridge’ or ‘from Köprü’.

-cı / -ci / -cu / -cü marks an occupation: a Demirci works iron, an Avcı hunts. After a root ending in a voiceless consonant the suffix becomes -çı, -çi, -çu, -çü: Topçu ‘gunner’, Sütçü ‘milkman’, Çiftçi ‘farmer’. According to TÜİK ADNKS 2025, Çiftçi ranks second in Şanlıurfa with 34,705 bearers.

-gil means ‘household, family’: Yaşargil ‘Yaşar’s family’, Uşaklıgil ‘the household of the man from Uşak’. -lar / -ler is the plural suffix and in a surname can name a family: Kayalar.

How does vowel harmony work in surnames?

In Turkish the vowels of a word are usually of one kind: all back (a, ı, o, u) or all front (e, i, ö, ü). Every surname page gives this information. Yılmaz and Kaya have back vowels; Öztürk and Demirci have front vowels.

Suffixes follow this harmony. That is why the same occupational suffix appears as -cı in Avcı, -ci in Demirci, -çu in Topçu and -çü in Sütçü. In the same way Konyalı has -lı and İzmirli has -li.

Compounds, by contrast, can break the harmony, because two separate words stand side by side. Özkan joins front öz with back kan; Gökhan and Alper also have mixed vowels. This is not an error but the natural result of a compound. Checking vowel harmony helps tell whether a surname is a compound or a suffixed word: a suffixed word is usually harmonic, while a disharmonic surname often contains two words.

How do you read a compound surname?

In Turkish compounds the weight of the meaning sits on the last element. Karakaya is a kind of rock, Demirtaş means ‘stone as hard as iron’, Özdemir is ‘pure iron’. On this site the subject category of a surname follows the last element too; the first element is recorded as a front element.

Some surnames have three parts. Karaosmanoğlu means ‘son of Kara Osman’: kara is a byname, Osman a personal name and -oğlu the patronymic pattern.

Compounds of frequent elements that are not dictionary headwords are labelled “1934 pattern” on this site: Gürses ‘full voice’, Aksoy ‘clean lineage’, Ertürk ‘brave Turk’. The label describes a structure; it does not claim that a particular surname was coined in 1934. According to TÜİK ADNKS 2025, Akyol ranks 28th in Denizli with 2,851 bearers. For more, see 1934-pattern compound surnames.

What mistakes are made when analysing surnames?

The most common mistakes are these:

1. Splitting a dictionary word: Erdem, Özgür, Özel, Akın. Always check the whole word first.
2. Confusing a look-alike element: Kartal contains no Kar-; Erkan is not er + kan but Arabic erkân.
3. Taking a verb form for a suffix: Güler and Yener end in -er but do not contain -er ‘brave one’; both are aorist verb forms.
4. Insisting on one reading: Doğan can be read as ‘falcon’ or as ‘born, rising’. In such cases the site gives both readings.
5. Taking a place name for a word, or the reverse: Kayalı may mean ‘rocky’; it may also derive from a place name.
6. Presenting a disputed name as settled: the origin of names such as Bektaş is disputed; the site then gives the competing views with their sources.

For the general history of surnames, see the guide to Turkish last names; for themes of meaning, see beautiful and meaningful Turkish surnames.