What is the most common surname in Türkiye?

Yılmaz. According to TÜİK ADNKS 2025, 1,177,896 people carry it, one person in 73. Kaya (899,722) and Demir (876,934) follow.

In which provinces is Yılmaz not the most common surname?

In 24 provinces in TÜİK ADNKS 2025. Demir leads in 9, Kaya in 5 and Şahin in 4; Aras leads Iğdır, Çelik Muş, Doğan Adıyaman, Kılıç Aksaray, Yıldırım Elazığ and Yıldız Siirt.

Does the ranking of the most common surnames change?

Very little. The top 30 for 2018 and 2025 contain the same surnames, and 27 kept their rank. In the top 10 no position changed in eight years.

Turkish Surname Statistics: Surnames in Numbers

The most solid numbers on Turkish surnames come from TÜİK, Türkiye's statistics office, and its Address-Based Population Registration System (ADNKS). Every year TÜİK publishes the 30 most common surnames for the whole country and for each of the 81 provinces, with the number of bearers. Every figure on this page is computed from those lists and the ADNKS population for the same year. The script and all tables can be downloaded, so the same data gives the same results.

According to TÜİK ADNKS 2025, Türkiye has 86,092,168 residents. The 10 most common surnames are carried by 7,448,820 people. That is 8.65% of the population, or roughly one person in 11.6. The top 30 add up to 13,397,342 people: 15.56% of the population, about one person in 6.4.

These shares have barely moved in eight years. In TÜİK ADNKS 2018 the top 10 held 8.66% and the top 30 15.57%. The difference is in the hundredths of a percentage point. Surnames pass down through families at birth, so the concentration carries over from one generation to the next.

The spread inside the list is also worth noting. In TÜİK ADNKS 2025, Yılmaz at number 1 has 1,177,896 bearers. Özdemir at number 10 has 556,378, and Aktaş at number 30 has 222,711. The top surname is about 5.3 times as common as the thirtieth.

"One in 73": how common is Yılmaz?

Yılmaz leads by a wide margin in TÜİK ADNKS 2025, with 1,177,896 bearers. That is 13.68 per 1,000 people: 86,092,168 ÷ 1,177,896 ≈ 73, so one person in 73. In a room of 100 people you would expect 1.4 Yılmaz on average.

The average hides large differences between provinces. In the TÜİK ADNKS 2025 province lists, Yılmaz is most concentrated in the north-east:

Ardahan: one in 30 (2,990 people)
Giresun: one in 36 (12,598)
Artvin: one in 37 (4,504)
Rize: one in 39 (8,878)
Trabzon: one in 44 (18,792)

It is least concentrated in Şırnak (one in 173), Bingöl (162), Iğdır (145) and Şanlıurfa (135). In İstanbul, 230,115 people carry the name, one in 68. Yılmaz appears in the top-30 list of all 81 provinces. Its lowest position is 11th, in Iğdır.

How did the top 30 change from 2018 to 2025?

Very little. The TÜİK ADNKS top 30 for 2018 and 2025 contain the same 30 surnames: none entered and none dropped out. 27 of the 30 kept their exact rank. In eight years there was not a single change of position within the top 10.

Only the lower half moved:

Yavuz rose from 25th to 23rd.
Çakır slipped from 23rd to 24th.
Özcan slipped from 24th to 25th.

The ranks held, but the gaps shifted. In 2018 only 146 people separated Yıldız in 5th place from Şahin in 6th (660,780 against 660,634). By 2025 the gap had grown to 8,866. The gap between Kaya and Demir is closing: 27,581 people in 2018, 22,788 in 2025. Kurt in 17th place also closed in on Kara in 16th, from 2,971 people behind to 301.

Which surnames grew fastest?

Over the same period Türkiye's population rose from 82,003,882 to 86,092,168, an increase of 4.99%. Of the top-30 surnames, 10 grew faster than that and 20 grew more slowly (TÜİK ADNKS 2018 and 2025).

The five fastest-growing surnames:

Aslan: from 378,965 to 409,459, +8.05%
Polat: +7.11%
Demir: +6.92%
Güneş: +6.18%
Kaya: +6.13%

The slowest were Özkan (+2.84%), Özcan (+3.08%), Çakır (+3.38%), Erdoğan (+3.52%) and Öztürk (+3.62%). Yılmaz grew by 3.83%, below the population. In absolute numbers Demir gained the most people (+56,778), followed by Kaya (+51,985) and Yılmaz (+43,453).

Read these differences with care. A surname's count changes through births, deaths, migration into and out of Türkiye, and name changes. ADNKS counts residents of Türkiye, so migration affects the totals too. The data cannot tell which of these factors drives a given surname's growth.

In how many provinces is Yılmaz not number one?

In TÜİK ADNKS 2025, Yılmaz ranks first in 57 of the 81 provinces. In the other 24, a different surname leads:

Demir leads in 9: Batman, Bitlis, Kahramanmaraş, Mardin, Osmaniye, Şanlıurfa, Şırnak, Tunceli, Van.
Kaya in 5: Ağrı, Bingöl, Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Kars.
Şahin in 4: Amasya, Çorum, Malatya, Yozgat.
One province each: Aras (Iğdır), Çelik (Muş), Doğan (Adıyaman), Kılıç (Aksaray), Yıldırım (Elazığ), Yıldız (Siirt).

So in 2025 the 81 provincial leaders are 10 different surnames, down from 11 in 2018–2023. Aras is the only surname that leads a province without being in the national top 30. It tops Iğdır with 2,795 bearers but appears in only 3 provincial top-30 lists.

The leaders do not stay fixed either. Between 2018 and 2025 the number-one surname changed at least once in 6 provinces. In Kırşehir, Şahin and Yılmaz kept swapping places; in Bayburt, Bayram and Yılmaz did the same. In Malatya, Doğan led from 2020 to 2022 before Şahin took first place again. Siirt was led by Yılmaz in 2018 and by Yıldız ever since. Tunceli switched between Yıldız and Demir, and Kilis was led by Polat in 2021 and 2022.

How many different surnames appear in the province lists?

The 81 provincial top-30 lists contain 2,449 rows in total (TÜİK ADNKS 2025). Some lists run past 30 rows because surnames with equal counts share a rank. Those rows hold 266 different surnames. Across all eight years, 2018–2025, the total is 280. The yearly figure ranges from 259 (2023) to 267 (2020 and 2022).

The 266 are spread very unevenly:

Yılmaz, Kaya and Demir are in the list of all 81 provinces. Yıldız and Yıldırım are in 80, Çelik in 79, Özdemir in 78.
131 surnames, almost half (49.2%), appear in the list of one province only.
The provinces with the most such single-province surnames are Bayburt (9), Iğdır (7), Şırnak (7), Rize (6) and Ardahan (5). In 29 provinces, every surname on the list also appears in at least one other province's list.

Some single-province examples: Ustabaş (Artvin, 11th), Kopuz (Rize, 14th), Altınsoy (Aksaray, 13th), Meral (Gümüşhane, 14th), Ertaş (Nevşehir, 15th), Şanverdi (Hatay, 15th) and Engin (Edirne, 16th). These names may well be carried in other provinces too. They are just not numerous enough there to reach the top 30.

Where are surnames most concentrated?

A province's "top-30 share" is the number of people on its list divided by the province's population. A high share means a few surnames cover a large part of the population. For Türkiye as a whole it is 15.56% (TÜİK ADNKS 2025).

Provinces differ a lot. The highest share is in Ardahan (29.26%), followed by Ağrı (27.36%), Gümüşhane (25.33%) and Gaziantep (24.46%). The lowest are Kırklareli (12.19%), Edirne (12.55%), Denizli (13.46%), Hatay (13.47%) and İzmir (13.66%).

Adding up the province lists of each of the seven geographic regions and dividing by the region's population gives this order (TÜİK ADNKS 2025):

Southeastern Anatolia: 21.33% (9 provinces)
Eastern Anatolia: 20.21% (14 provinces)
Black Sea: 19.43% (18 provinces)
Central Anatolia: 16.60% (13 provinces)
Mediterranean: 15.46% (8 provinces)
Marmara: 15.44% (11 provinces)
Aegean: 14.53% (8 provinces)

The number of different surnames in each region's lists also varies. The 18 Black Sea provinces have 129 and the 14 Eastern Anatolian provinces 120, but the 11 Marmara provinces only 62. Every province in Marmara and the Aegean is led by Yılmaz, which shows how similar the lists of large provinces with mixed populations are.

These shares show where concentration is high, not why. A regional share is the sum of province lists, not a regional top 30, and the number of provinces in a region affects it.

How much more common is a surname in one province?

To measure how concentrated a surname is in a province compared with the national average, we use a location quotient: (count in the province ÷ province population) ÷ (national count ÷ national population). A value of 1 means average concentration, 2 means twice the average. We can only compute it for surnames in the national top 30, because TÜİK does not publish national totals for the others.

The highest values in TÜİK ADNKS 2025:

Polat in Kilis: 5.59 (2,797 people, 2nd in the province)
Özcan in Sinop: 4.84 (2,968 people, 4th)
Polat in Erzurum: 4.02 (9,429 people, 3rd)
Polat in Ağrı: 3.95
Acar in Mardin: 3.81
Aydın in Giresun: 3.61 (11,109 people, 2nd)

Polat appears six times among the 20 highest values. A surname ranked 19th nationally can be several times more concentrated than average in particular provinces.

How long are the surnames in our dataset?

This section describes 5,194 published surname entries. The most frequent lengths and their surname totals are 5: 1,244 · 6: 971 · 7: 855. The shortest surnames have 2 letters: Ak, Al, Ar, Ay, Er, Eş, İl, Ok, Öz, Su, Us, Uz, Ün. The longest have 19 letters: Yazıcıefendizâdeler. The most frequent initials are A: 735 · K: 670.

In the TÜİK ADNKS 2025 national top 30 the average length is 5.2 letters. Half of them, 15, have exactly 5 letters: Demir, Çelik, Şahin, Aydın, Doğan and others.

How many different surnames are there in Türkiye?

There is no official answer. TÜİK publishes only the top-30 lists, and the total number of distinct surnames in Türkiye is not a published statistic. Figures that circulate online come without a source, and we do not offer an estimate of our own. What we can say for certain: 280 different surnames appeared at least once in the national or provincial lists between 2018 and 2025.

How should these numbers be read?

Every figure is labelled "TÜİK ADNKS {year}" and describes the resident population of Türkiye on 31 December of that year.
The figures NVİ (the civil registry) gave to the press come from a different register and are larger. We do not mix them with these tables. The Methodology page explains the difference.
If a surname is missing from a province's list, that does not mean nobody carries it there. It only means its count is below the 30th entry of that list.
Shares use the ADNKS population of the same year: Türkiye's population for national figures, the province's for provincial ones.