Most Popular Girl Names in Turkey in 2024 (TÜİK) and Their Meanings

Turkey's 2024 list of girls' names saw a small but telling change at the top: Defne moved into first place with 7,447 babies. Asel, the leader a year earlier, slipped to second with 7,337, just 110 behind. Zeynep, for years the undisputed favourite, now stands third with 6,523 babies.

Below you will find the 30 girl names most often given in Turkey in 2024 according to TÜİK, the Turkish Statistical Institute, with their meanings, origins, Arabic spellings and Abjad values. Then we look at the list from a different angle: names drawn from nature and light carry a surprising share of this year's ranking.

The 30 most popular girl names in Turkey in 2024

The baby counts show how many times each name was given among births registered with TÜİK that year. Abjad values are calculated from the Arabic spelling shown in the table; for names of Turkish origin this is a phonetic Ottoman spelling.

Source: TÜİK, Population Statistics Portal — Most Given Baby Names (nip.tuik.gov.tr).

From 2023 to 2024: what changed?

Defne's win looks less like a leap than a reward for patience. In the series we have, Defne was third every year from 2018 to 2023 except 2021; in 2024 its count rose by 8.2%, from 6,883 to 7,447. Over the same year Asel lost 767 babies and Zeynep 1,079. Zeynep's long view is even more striking: first in 2018 with 14,183 babies, it fell to 6,523 in 2024, less than half (54.0% lower).

Fastest climbers

• Umay: from 30th to 11th, a jump of 19 places (66.2% more babies).
• Efnan: from 27th to 14th (13 places).
• Doğa: from 28th to 17th (11 places).
• Mihra: from 22nd to 12th (10 places).
• Gökçe: from 9th to 5th; with 1,409 more babies, the largest increase in absolute numbers.
• Duru: from 18th to 10th; its first top-ten place since 2018.

Fallers, newcomers and departures

The sharpest drops came for Ecrin (10th to 23rd) and Eslem (13th to 26th), both down 13 places. Masal slid from 11th to 22nd and Azra from 15th to 25th. İnci, absent from the 2023 list, entered straight at 13th, and Aden took 30th place; Zehra (زهراء) and Kumsal (قومصال) dropped out of the top 30. The combined total of the top 30 barely moved: 105,248 in 2023, 105,505 in 2024.

The list's hidden thread: names of nature and light

Read the table by meaning rather than by rank and a pattern appears. 12 of the 30 names carry an image from nature, the sky or light: a tree, a branch, a river, an island, an eye colour, the sun itself. We include Mihra with caution: it is a modern name, associated with the Persian word mihr (sun, love).

These 12 names were given to 41,536 babies in 2024, 39.4% of all babies with a top-30 name. The 11 that were also on the 2023 list rose from 34,446 to 38,361 (11.4% up), while the top-30 total grew by only 257. The group does not move as one, though: Defne, Gökçe, Efnan, Doğa, Duru and Mihra rose, while Nehir, Güneş, Ada, Ela and Lina slipped by one to eight places. The growth comes from those six names, not from the whole group.

Some of these names also connect to the Qur'an: Efnan, meaning "branches", appears in Surah ar-Rahman (55:48), and the word "līna" (a date palm), behind Lina, occurs in Surah al-Hashr (59:5). These are words found in the Qur'an, not personal names; the only woman named in the Qur'an is Maryam, Meryem on this list.

Through Abjad eyes: the sun's letters are fire, the river's are earth

In the Abjad tradition each letter is linked to an element (in the classification we use on this site; some authors order them differently). The last column of the table shows which element's letters carry most of a name's value, and it reveals some interesting contrasts:

• Güneş ("sun", گونش, 376): 80% of its value comes from the Fire letter shin (ش 300), so meaning and letter element point the same way.
• Gökçe (گوكچه, 54) speaks of the sky, yet 80% of its letters belong to Water.
• Nehir ("river", نهر, 255) is a water name, but most of its value is carried by the Earth letter ra (ر 200).
• Doğa ("nature", دوغا, 1011) has the highest value on the list, set almost entirely by ghayn (غ 1000). At the other end is Ada ("island", أدا, 6): two alifs and a dal give the smallest value on the list.

In the top 10 all four elements are represented: 3 names lean to Earth, 3 to Water, 2 to Fire and 2 to Air. Across all 30 names Earth clearly leads (16 names).

What does that tell you? On its own, very little. A name's meaning and the element of its letters are different things, and neither an Abjad value nor a dominant element is read as "good" or "bad". What the tradition really looks at is the balance a name creates within the family: which elements the mother's and father's names concentrate in, and what the child's name adds. Adding Güneş to a Fire-heavy family is not the same as adding Doğa to an Earth-heavy one.

Quick questions

Is a name near the top of the list a better choice?

No. The ranking only shows how often a name was given that year. Parents who want a familiar name and parents who want a rare one will read the same table differently.

Is there newer data?

Yes, TÜİK has also published its 2025 figures. We cover the 2025 list in a separate article; this one focuses on the 2024 table and the changes since 2023.

Why does the Arabic spelling matter?

The Abjad value is calculated from letters, and different spellings of the same name can give different values. That is why we use the spelling shown in the table, with a phonetic Ottoman spelling for names of Turkish origin.

Final word

The 2024 list shows two things: a name that has held steady for years, like Defne, can reach the top, and names like Umay and Efnan can climb more than ten places in a single year. Names of nature and light account for about two fifths of all babies with a top-30 name. But the right name for your child is not decided by its rank; it is decided by its meaning and the harmony it creates with your family. Looking at the name you have in mind together with the mother's and father's names shows what no ranking can.

Note: This article is for information only. Abjad and letter elements are a traditional interpretive framework; no claim is made that a name determines anything about a person's life.