Most Popular Baby Girl Names in Azerbaijan 2025 and Their Meanings

Anyone who knows Turkish will feel at home reading Azerbaijan's 2025 list: Melisa, Zeynəb, Məryəm, Nilay, Aylin, Ayla, İnci... A few letters look different, but most of these names are heard every day in Turkey too. The name given most often to baby girls in Azerbaijan in 2025 was Melisa: 1,200 babies.

Below you will find the top 10 girl names of 2025 with the Azerbaijani spelling and the Turkish form side by side, their meanings, Arabic spellings and Abjad values, followed by a comparison with 2024.

Where does this list come from?

The figures come from the name statistics of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Azerbaijan, based on birth registrations, and cover the whole country. Each year the ministry publishes only the top 10 names for girls and for boys, with the number of babies given each name; no longer list is released. Every spelling is counted separately, so the figure for Zeynəb covers only babies registered with exactly that spelling.

The only year-end lists available are for 2024 and 2025; there is no full-year data for earlier years, so the comparison is limited to these two years. Melisa's 2025 figure was misprinted in one news report; we used 1,200, the figure consistent with the ranking.

The top 10 girl names of 2025

A spelling decoder: why is Zeynəb Zeynep in Turkey?

Almost every difference between the Azerbaijani spelling and the Turkish form in the table comes down to a few rules:

• The letter ə: the Azerbaijani ə is a more open sound than Turkish e (close to the "a" in "cat"). Turkish writes it as e: Məryəm → Meryem, Zəhra → Zehra.
• Final b and p: Azerbaijani keeps the final letter of the Arabic original: Zeynəb. Turkish turns a word-final b into p: Zeynep.
• Shortened names: Fatimə stays close to the Arabic Fāṭima; in Turkey the most common form is the shortened Fatma.
• No change at all: Melisa, Nilay, Aylin, Ayla, İnci and Alisa are spelled the same in both countries.

For Abjad the key point is this: the Latin spelling may change, but the Arabic spelling does not. Zeynəb and Zeynep are both written زينب and are worth 69; Fatimə and Fatma are both فاطمة, 135. A Məryəm in Baku and a Meryem in Istanbul carry the same number: 290.

What changed from 2024 to 2025?

• A new No. 1. Zeynəb, first in 2024, slipped to second, while Melisa rose from 6th to 1st. 59 more babies were given the name Melisa.
• Only two names grew: Melisa and İnci (+24). For every other name that stayed in the top 10, fewer babies were given the name; the largest fall was for Zəhra (175 fewer), followed by Fatimə (139) and Zeynəb (132).
• One in, one out: Alisa entered the list at 9th with 946 babies. Mələk (Turkish Melek), 10th in 2024, was not in the 2025 top 10.
• Tiny margins: in 2025 only 2 babies separate Zeynəb and Məryəm. In 2024 the top three were within 20 babies of each other. The gap between 1st and 10th in 2025 is 397 babies.

Four Arabic, four Turkic, two newcomers

The origins in the top 10 are balanced: Zeynəb, Məryəm, Zəhra and Fatimə are Arabic; Nilay, Aylin, Ayla and İnci are Turkic. Melisa comes from the Greek word for "bee", and Alisa is the Russian and Slavic form of Alice.

All four Arabic names are linked to revered women in Islamic history. Məryəm is the name of Mary, the only woman named in the Qur'an, and the 19th sura of the Qur'an bears her name. Fatimə is the name of the Prophet's daughter, and Zəhra ("bright, radiant") is known as her epithet. Zeynəb was borne by both a daughter and a granddaughter of the Prophet.

Three of the Turkic names look to the sky: Aylin and Ayla come straight from "ay" (moon), and Nilay combines "Nil" (the Nile) with "ay". İnci means "pearl".

The Abjad view

An Abjad value is the sum of the letters in the name's established Arabic spelling; the Latin spelling plays no part. For Turkic names we used the Arabic-script spelling in common use.

• Elements of the first letters: 7 of the top 10 begin with a Fire letter (م ا ف). 2 begin with the Water letter ز (Zeynəb, Zəhra) and 1 with the Air letter ن (Nilay); none begins with an Earth letter. This follows the classical classification used on our site; some authors order the elements differently.
• Highest and lowest: Məryəm has the highest value, 290, of which 200 comes from a single letter, ر. The lowest is Ayla with 42.
• Same value: Nilay (نيلاي) and Aylin (آيلين) sit next to each other in the ranking and are both worth 101. Alisa is one more, 102.
• When the spelling changes: Zəhra is 213 as زهراء and 217 as زهرة, the spelling meaning "flower". İnci is 74 as إينجي and 64 as إنجي; Melisa is 151 as ميليسا and 141 as مليسا. Spellings are not ranked as better or worse; it is because the result changes that our reports fix the spelling first.

A name's value on its own is not the analysis. In the Abjad tradition what matters is the balance between the name's letters and elements and the names of the mother and father; for the child's yıldızname (star chart) the mother's name also comes into the calculation. The same Aylin may complete a missing element in one family and reinforce an already dominant one in another.

Final word

The Azerbaijani list shows how close the naming tastes of the two countries are: the same names, with small spelling differences. In the partial list for the first three months of 2026 the top 10 is made up of the same ten names. Popularity is only one piece of information, though; when choosing a name it is wisest to weigh its meaning, its spelling and its harmony with the family's names together.

This article is for information only. Abjad interpretations are based on tradition and do not constitute a definitive judgement or guarantee about any name.

Source: Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Azerbaijan, newborn name statistics based on birth registrations (the "Azərbaycan adları barədə məlumat" e-service and the ministry's year-end announcements; 31 December 2024 for 2024 and January 2026 for 2025; top 10 names). The figures refer to births registered in Azerbaijan in the year concerned. All figures are taken from Azerbaijani press reports quoting the ministry's data; because the 2024 list was published on 31 December, the last few days of that year may be missing.