Origin·332 surnames
Surnames of Persian origin
- Surnames
- 332
- in this dictionary
- Most common
- Şahin
How did these words enter Turkish?
Şahin is the sixth most common surname in Türkiye. TÜİK ADNKS 2025 counts 688,214 bearers. Dictionaries derive the word from Persian šāhīn, a falcon-like bird of prey. The same list includes Polat (273,871) and Can (230,085). Polat comes from Persian pūlād ‘steel’ and Can from Persian jān ‘soul, life’. Even among the most frequent surnames the Persian layer is plain to see.
Persian words entered Turkish over a long period. Under the Anatolian Seljuks, Persian was the language of literature and correspondence. In the Ottoman period it became, with Arabic, one of the main sources of the written language. Poetry, court life, administration and the crafts absorbed Persian vocabulary. Part of the Arabic vocabulary also came into Turkish through Persian. Andreas Tietze’s study of Persian loanwords in Anatolian Turkish shows that these words did not stay in books; they spread into rural dialects too.
Persian loans are often hard to spot, because many are very old. Words such as bahçe ‘garden’, şehir ‘city’, pazar ‘market’ and hafta ‘week’ feel entirely Turkish today. Sound changes blur the traces as well: pūlād became pulat and then polat. Persian gul ‘rose’ was fitted to vowel harmony as gül. Other words keep a Persian shape, such as pehlivan ‘wrestler, strongman’ and kahraman ‘hero’.
In surnames, Persian words favour a few fields. Feeling and life: Can, Candan ‘heartfelt’. Nature and seasons: Gül, Bahar ‘spring’, Derya ‘sea’. Strength and courage: Kahraman, Pehlivan, Polat. Birds: Şahin, Baz ‘hawk’. A Persian suffix also lives on. -dar ‘holding, owner of’ was added to Turkish bayrak ‘flag’ to give bayraktar ‘standard-bearer’, so the surname Bayraktar is a mixed formation.
Mixed compounds are the clearest feature of this layer. Özcan joins Turkish öz ‘own, pure’ to Persian can. Akgül combines Turkish ak ‘white’ with gül, a word of Persian origin. For such surnames the site lists both roots and assigns the origin by the element the meaning rests on. Some origins are disputed: several explanations, Persian among them, have been offered for Çelebi.
Persian words can also be mistaken for Turkish compounds. Cihan ‘world’, Reyhan ‘basil’ and Nihan ‘hidden’ are Persian words. They are not compounds with the Turkish element -han.
Occupational names are one of the fields where the Persian layer shows most in surnames. Bahçıvan ‘gardener’ comes from Persian bāġčebān ‘keeper of a garden’. Nalbant ‘farrier’ joins Arabic naʿl ‘horseshoe’ to the Persian element -band ‘fastening’, so it is a mixed word formed within Persian. Turkish speakers feel such words as single units, and they combine easily with Turkish suffixes, as in Nalbantoğlu. Although their inner structure is Persian, these surnames are also listed in their own occupation categories on the site.
Origins follow the TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük and the Nişanyan dictionary. A Persian root explains how a word reached Turkish. It does not explain anything about the people who carry the surname.
Which of them are most common?
All surnames of Persian origin
| # | Surname | Meaning | Rank | Letters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Şahin | hawk, buzzard | 6 | 5 |
| 02 | Polat | steel; strong as steel | 19 | 5 |
| 03 | Özcan | pure soul; dear to the heart | 25 | 5 |
| 04 | Can | soul, life; dear one | 27 | 3 |
| 05 | Abadan | prosperous, flourishing | – | 6 |
| 06 | Abanoz | ebony | – | 6 |
| 07 | Afacan | clever and mischievous | – | 6 |
| 08 | Ağgül | white rose | – | 5 |
| 09 | Akbayram | bright festival | – | 8 |
| 10 | Akcan | white dear, pure soul | – | 5 |
| 11 | Akdülger | ak + carpenter | – | 8 |
| 12 | Akgül | white rose | – | 5 |
| 13 | Akpolat | bright steel | – | 7 |
| 14 | Albayram | red + festival | – | 8 |
| 15 | Alemdar | standard-bearer | – | 7 |
| 16 | Alemdaroğlu | son of the standard-bearer | – | 11 |
| 17 | Algül | red rose | – | 5 |
| 18 | Alican | dear Ali | – | 6 |
| 19 | Almas | diamond | – | 5 |
| 20 | Alten | rosy-skinned | – | 5 |
| 21 | Altınçekiç | golden hammer | – | 10 |
| 22 | Altındere | golden brook | – | 9 |
| 23 | Anar | pomegranate (Persian); remembers | – | 4 |
| 24 | Araz | the river Aras | – | 4 |
| 25 | Arıcan | pure of soul | – | 6 |
| 26 | Armağan | gift, present | – | 7 |
| 27 | Arman | wish, longing | – | 5 |
| 28 | Arzuman | eager, desirous | – | 7 |
| 29 | Atacan | devoted to one’s forefathers | – | 6 |
| 30 | Atagül | forefather + rose | – | 6 |
| 31 | Ataş | fire (dialect form) | – | 4 |
| 32 | Ateş | fire | – | 4 |
| 33 | Ateşçi | stoker, fire-tender | – | 6 |
| 34 | Ateşin | fiery, ardent | – | 6 |
| 35 | Ateşli | fiery, passionate | – | 6 |
| 36 | Aycan | dear moon | – | 5 |
| 37 | Aydos | moon-friend; hill and mountain name | – | 5 |
| 38 | Aygül | moon rose | – | 5 |
| 39 | Ayna | mirror | – | 4 |
| 40 | Aynacı | mirror-maker | – | 6 |
| 41 | Aypar | piece of the moon; moonlight | – | 5 |
| 42 | Aytaç | moon-crowned | – | 5 |
| 43 | Ayten | moon-bodied, moon-skinned | – | 5 |
| 44 | Azar | scolding; the month of March | – | 4 |
| 45 | Badem | almond | – | 5 |
| 46 | Bademci | almond seller | – | 7 |
| 47 | Bağ | vineyard; or bond | – | 3 |
| 48 | Bağcı | vine-grower | – | 5 |
| 49 | Bağdat | the city of Baghdad | – | 6 |
| 50 | Bahar | spring | – | 5 |
| 51 | Bahçeci | gardener | – | 7 |
| 52 | Bahçeli | with a garden | – | 7 |
| 53 | Bahçıvan | gardener | – | 8 |
| 54 | Bahtiyar | happy, fortunate | – | 8 |
| 55 | Balaban | bittern; reed pipe; hefty | – | 7 |
| 56 | Baran | rain | – | 5 |
| 57 | Batman | old weight unit; place name | – | 6 |
| 58 | Behramoğlu | son of Behram | – | 10 |
| 59 | Bender | port; Bender (fortress) | – | 6 |
| 60 | Benderlioğlu | son of the man from Bender | – | 12 |
| 61 | Berent | sword | – | 6 |
| 62 | Beyazıt | name of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid | – | 7 |
| 63 | Bingül | a thousand roses | – | 6 |
| 64 | Bircan | one and only beloved | – | 6 |
| 65 | Birgül | a single, unique rose | – | 6 |
| 66 | Bolat | steel | – | 5 |
| 67 | Bostan | vegetable garden | – | 6 |
| 68 | Bostancı | market gardener; palace guard | – | 8 |
| 69 | Bostancıoğlu | son of the market gardener | – | 12 |
| 70 | Bulat | steel | – | 5 |
| 71 | Bulgurlu | of bulgur; from Bulgurlu | – | 8 |
| 72 | Canan | beloved | – | 5 |
| 73 | Canbaz | acrobat, tightrope walker | – | 6 |
| 74 | Canbolat | steel-souled | – | 8 |
| 75 | Canbulat | steel soul | – | 8 |
| 76 | Candan | sincere, heartfelt | – | 6 |
| 77 | Canpolat | soul of steel | – | 8 |
| 78 | Cansız | lifeless; listless, weak | – | 6 |
| 79 | Cansun | you are dear | – | 6 |
| 80 | Cemgil | the Cem family | – | 6 |
| 81 | Ciğerci | offal seller, liver vendor | – | 7 |
| 82 | Cihan | world, universe | – | 5 |
| 83 | Cihangir | world-conqueror | – | 8 |
Common questions
- Is the surname Şahin Persian?
Dictionaries generally derive the word from Persian šāhīn. It has been used in Turkish as a bird name for centuries.
- How is the origin of a surname like Özcan shown?
Özcan is a mixed compound of Turkish öz and Persian can. The site lists both roots separately.
- Is Cihan formed with -han?
No. Cihan is a single Persian word meaning ‘world’.
Sources
- 1Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük
- 2Sevan Nişanyan, Nişanyan Sözlük
- 3Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi (TÜBA), Türkçeye Armağan Bir Ömürden Bir Ömürlük Eser: Prof. Andreas Tietze “Tarihî ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugati” (with a bibliography of Tietze’s loanword studies: Greek 1955/1962, Arabic 1958, Slavic 1957, Persian 1967, European 1952)
- 4Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TÜİK) · ADNKS, TÜİK Nüfus İsim Portalı: En çok kullanılan soyisimler (ADNKS)