Surname index·Letter
Surnames beginning with R
Only 12 surnames begin with R, 0.3% of all entries, which makes it one of the rarer initials. None of them is in the national top 30 of TÜİK ADNKS 2025, so each is rarer than every name on that list.
- Surnames
- 12
- in this index
- In the national top 30
- 0
- ADNKS 2025
12 surnames in Turkish alphabetical order
The letter R in Turkish surnames
Like l, r never began a native Turkic word. Older borrowings often gained a vowel in front (Urum for Rum, the Byzantine ‘Romans’), while later loans kept the r: Rıza and Recep are Arabic, Rüstem is Persian. R-surnames are consequently rare, and most of them come from such given names.
The surnames under this letter, in figures
The meanings are spread over 10 categories; the largest are “Patronymic -oğlu surnames” (3), “Surnames from nicknames” (1) and “Domestic and other animals” (1). Borrowed roots are in the majority here: Arabic (9), Persian (1), French (1), against 0 Turkic. On average they have 5.0 letters, shorter than the dictionary average of 6.3. The longest is Ramazanoğlu (11 letters), the shortest Rey (3). In vowel harmony, names with only back vowels lead (6) over front-vowel names (5); 1 mix the two, usually a sign of a compound or a loan.