Türkçe Sözlük - Turkish Dictionary & Thesaurus

This is the digital and physical edition of the 12th version of the Turkish Dictionary, published by the Turkish Language Association since 1945, now available for portable devices in 2023.

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Writing of Foreign Proper Names

January 12, 2019/Category / Spelling Rules

Proper Names in Languages Using Latin Alphabet

1. Proper names in languages using Latin alphabet are written in their original forms: Beethoven, Byron, Cervantes, Chopin, Eminescu, Grimm, Horatius, Molière, Puccini, Rousseau, Shakespeare; Bologna, Buenos Aires, Iorga, Ile-de-France, Karlovy Vary, Latium, Loire, Mann, New York, Nice, Rio de Janeiro, Vaasa, Wuppertal, etc. However, the pronunciations of names used in Western languages can be shown in parentheses: Shakespeare, etc.

2. Some Western-origin person and place names that have settled in our language in the past are written according to their Turkish pronunciations: Napoleon, Charles, Charles (Iron Head Charles); Athens, Brussels, Geneva, London, Marseille, Munich, Paris, Rome, Thessaloniki, Venice, Vienna, Zurich; Holland, Latvia, Luxembourg etc.

3. Movement names derived from foreign proper names are written according to their Turkish pronunciations: Cartesianism, Epicureanism, Calvinist, Calvinism, Calvinism, Cartesianism, Lutheranism, Lutheranism, Marxism, Marxist, Marxism etc.

4. Place names written separately in the language they belong to are also written separately in Turkish: Buenos Aires, Frankfurt am Main, Freiburg im Breisgau, Hyde Park, Mont Blanc, New Orleans, New York, Rio de Janeiro, San Marino, Wiener Neustadt, Titov Veles etc.

Arabic and Persian Proper Names

Personal and place names of Arabic and Persian origin are written according to the sound and structure characteristics of Turkish: Ahmet, Bedrettin, Fuat, Mehmet, Necmettin, Nizamettin, Ömer, Rıza, Saadettin; Algeria, Morocco, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia; Baghdad, Jeddah, Erdebil, Aleppo, Isfahan, Alexandria, Medina, Mecca, Damascus, Shiraz, Tehran, Tabriz, Tripoli, etc.

Greek Proper Names

When writing Greek names, Turkish letters that correspond to the sound values of Greek letters are used: Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, Pindaros, Solon, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Venizelos, Karamanlis, Papandreou, Onasis, etc.

However, the names Herodotus, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, Euclid have settled in our language as Herodotus, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, Euclid.

Russian Proper Names

When writing Russian proper names, Turkish letters that correspond to the sound values of Russian letters are used: Bolshevik, Brezhnev, Tchaikovsky, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Gorbachev, Ilminskiy, Ilyich, Katayev, Klyashtorny, Malov, Mendeleyev, Prokofyev, Pushkin, Sholokhov, Tolstoy, Yeltsin; Moscow, Omsk, Orenburg, Petersburg, Volga, Yenisey, etc.

Proper Names in Far Eastern Languages

1. Chinese names are written according to their established forms in Turkish: Huangho, Kanton, Nankin, Beijing, Shanghai.

Surnames in Chinese come before small names. Surnames are mostly monosyllabic, while diminutive names consist of one or two syllables. These names begin with a capital letter; a line is placed between the syllables: Sun Yat-sen, Lin Yu-tang. Only popular names such as Confucius are written together.

2. Japanese names are also written according to their established forms in Turkish: Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Osaka, Kyoto; Hirohito, Kayako Hayashi, Sbuishi Kato, Masao Mori.

Proper Names in Turkish States and Communities

Personal and place names in Turkish states and communities are written according to their established forms in Turkish: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan; Tashkent, Samarkand, Baku, Bishkek; Abdullah Tukay, Abdurrauf Fitrat, Bahtiyar Vahapzade, Baykonur, Cafer Cebbarli, Cemal Kemal, Cengiz Aytmatov, Islam Kerimov, Muhtar Avazov, Osman Nasir, etc.