2026 Baby Girl Names in Turkey: Trending, Modern and Meaningful

Parents choosing a girl's name in Turkey in 2026 tend to ask the same first question: "Which names are in fashion this year?" The honest answer is that no official list for babies born in 2026 exists yet. Turkey's statistical institute, TÜİK, publishes the list after the year is over. Any "most popular girl names of 2026" ranking you see online is, unless it names a source, a guess.

We did something different. We lined up the 30 most given girl names that TÜİK published for every year from 2018 to 2025 and calculated, by script, which names are gaining momentum, which are newcomers and which have not moved for years. The result is not a "2026 ranking". It is a map of the strongest candidates going into 2026.

Method: what counts as a trend here?

• Rising stars: names already in the top 30 in 2023 whose numbers grew clearly by 2025.
• Newcomers: names absent from the 2023 list that entered the top 30 in 2024 or 2025.
• Classics: names in the top 30 in all eight years from 2018 to 2025. 14 names meet this test; seven are shown below.
• Names past their peak: names that soared one year and then fell back, included to show the other side of a trend.

The counts are TÜİK's registered births. Source: TÜİK, Nüfus İstatistikleri Portalı — En Çok Verilen Bebek İsimleri (Population Statistics Portal, Most Given Baby Names; nip.tuik.gov.tr). We make no numerical forecast for 2026.

Rising stars

The most striking story is Alya. The name has been in the top 30 every year since 2018, always somewhere in the middle. In 2023 it ranked 20th with 2,687 babies. In 2025 it came first with 8,739. So Alya is not a new name; it is a familiar name that suddenly took off.

Gökçe's rise has been longer. It entered the list in 2021 in 28th place (2,197 babies), climbed every year and reached 3rd place in 2025 with 7,582 babies, +245% compared with 2021. Umay entered in 2023 in last place (30th), then ranked 11th in 2024 and 6th in 2025. Elisa is quieter but steady: its count has grown every single year since 2021.

Newcomers to the list

The 6 names that entered the top 30 for the first time in 2025 (Eflin, Ceylin, Arya, İpek, Mira, Sare) were given to 14,848 baby girls in total. İnci entered in 2024 at 13th and rose to 9th in 2025. In the same year 6 names dropped out: Efnan, Ebrar, Ecrin, Azra, Eslem and Aden.

A word of caution: the meanings of Eflin, Ceylin, Arya and Mira are explained differently from source to source, and none has a definite dictionary meaning. If a meaningful name is your priority, choose them knowing this.

Classics that hold their ground

Zeynep was number one every year from 2018 to 2022. Given to 14,183 babies in 2018, it was given to 6,228 in 2025 (−56%), yet it still ranks 4th. Defne was first in 2024 and second in 2025. Maryam (Meryem) is the only woman mentioned by name in the Qur'an (Maryam 19:16), and İkra is the first word of the first revealed verse (al-ʿAlaq 96:1). The advantage of classics is clear: they do not depend on a short-lived fashion and will not sound like "a name of its year" later on.

Names past their peak: the other side of a trend

Asel was number one in 2023 with 8,104 babies; two years later it ranks 5th with 5,855. Nehir was 6th in 2021 (5,235 babies) and 26th in 2025 (2,460). These are still well-loved names with beautiful meanings. But the table is a reminder: a name at the top today may be one of the most crowded names in your daughter's classroom, and then become rare quite quickly.

Reading a trend before you choose: a 6-point checklist

1. Look at three years or more, not one. Tell a one-year jump from a long rise: Alya's leap and Elisa's year-on-year growth are different stories.
2. Think about namesakes. In 2025 alone, Alya, Defne and Gökçe were given to 24,037 baby girls. A popular name means several namesakes in the same class; if that does not bother you, it is no problem.
3. Check the direction of the top name. As Asel shows, the number one name can start falling the following year.
4. Verify the meaning. Some modern names have no dictionary meaning; weigh "it has a lovely meaning" by its source.
5. Settle the spelling. If the spelling in Arabic letters changes, so does the Abjad value (see the example below).
6. Picture the name within the family. Consider how it sits with the surname, siblings' names and the parents' names.

A small note through the Abjad lens

Mira and Miray differ by a single letter: Mira ميرا is 251, Miray ميراي is 261. The extra yā' (ي) adds exactly 10. İnci is similar: with the phonetic spelling used on this site, إنجي, it is 64; with the classical Ottoman spelling اینجو it is 70. In the tables above, the lowest value belongs to Ela (32) and the highest to İkra (302).

Yet a name's Abjad value on its own is not an analysis. In the Abjad tradition the real question is how that number comes together with the mother's and father's names, and a child's Yildizname (star chart) sign is derived from the child's own name plus the mother's name. A trend list gives you candidates; how a candidate fits your family only shows in a calculation made with the family's names.

Note: The figures in this article are calculated from TÜİK's published 2018–2025 data; there is no official data for 2026 yet, and the article contains no ranking forecast. Abjad interpretations reflect a traditional perspective and offer no definitive result or guarantee.