Surnames of Mongolic origin

The relationship between Mongolic and the Turkic languages is one of the most debated questions in historical linguistics. The two groups share a large number of words. Linguists disagree on whether these came from borrowing or from a very old common ancestor. This page stays out of that debate. It deals only with the words and names that dictionaries identify as Mongolic.

Most Mongolic words in Turkish date from the 13th and 14th centuries. Mongol expansion then reached across a wide area from Central Asia to Anatolia. Ilkhanid rule was established over Iran and much of Anatolia. Many terms of administration, the army and taxation entered Persian and Turkish at this time. Some stayed in use through the Ottoman period; others fell out of use.

In surnames the Mongolic layer is small and consists mainly of titles and personal names. Noyan is a Mongolic title meaning ‘commander, lord’. Batu is a Mongolic personal name, explained in dictionaries as ‘firm, strong’. Cengiz comes from the title of the Mongol ruler; the origin of the title itself is disputed, and several explanations have been offered. These names are used today in Türkiye as given names and surnames.

For some words, Turkic and Mongolic explanations stand side by side. One view derives Altan from Mongolic altan ‘golden’. Another treats it as Turkish al ‘red’ plus tan ‘dawn’. Ulus ‘people, nation’ is a similar case: the word occurs in both Old Turkic and Mongolic, and the direction of borrowing is disputed. The site marks such records as disputed and gives both views.

Mongolic words sometimes reached Turkish indirectly, through Persian. The written language of the Ilkhanid period was largely Persian, so a term may appear in Turkish in its Persian shape. That indirect route is taken into account when an origin is assigned.

In 1934, people who drew on this layer for a surname mostly took names known from epics and history books. On this site those names are explained as words. No link is drawn between the families who carry them and historical figures.

Sometimes the story of a Mongolic word in Turkish starts again centuries later. Kurultay is an example. Usually given as Mongolic in dictionaries, it was the name of the great assembly that chose rulers or took major decisions in the Mongol period. Written Ottoman made little use of it. In the 20th century it was revived as the name for large congresses; the Turkish Language Congress of 1932, the Türk Dili Kurultayı, is a well-known case. An old loan thus found new life during the language reform.

The etymologies on this page are drawn from the Nişanyan dictionary and the TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük. Where dictionaries disagree, the disagreement is stated openly.