The Golden Chain with the Crescent-Moon Clasp
watch as a quiz-based guide to Turkish personal names is twisted into a mnemonic technique
There’s this one trashy TV news site in my feed. I do occasionally read an interesting piece of news among the celebrity clickbait headlines,1 but the one really useful thing it teaches me is Turkish personal names. Being used to Anglo-Saxon or European names as I am, I wasn’t familiar with many Turkish names previously, and some of them are really awesome.
There’s a particular problem with learning Turkish names by reading them in Turkish. Like in English, some Turkish given names are feminine, some are masculine, and some are neutral. However, you won’t naturally pick up which is which just by reading the context, since there are no gendered pronouns in Turkish. In English, the sentence “In his acceptance speech, George Clooney thanked his director” assigns the subject’s gender immediately, but in Turkish the 3rd person singular pronouns “he/she/they” etc. are all replaced by a single gender-neutral pronoun “o”.
For anyone familiar with Romance languages, it’s easy to guess that “Roberto” is masculine, while “Roberta” is feminine, but Turkish doesn’t feature such declension - Fatma is feminine, but Kaya is masculine. There are some rules around naming, though, and some vague trends and tendencies. To pass on what I’ve picked up, lets play a guessing game. I’ll post pictures of two actors, and you try to match the names to the faces. Your choices for each name are simple: they can be masculine (erkek), feminine (kız), or neutral (unisex).
(The “correct” answers are obtainable online from the Türk Dil Kurumu dictionary of names; if you scroll to the end I’ll show you how to do it)
Lets start off easy, with two really common names, Burak and Özge. Can you match the names to the faces?
Burak Özçivit and Özge Törer
Burak is a very common masculine name; in addition to Burak Özçivit who plays the founder of the Ottoman Empire in ATV’s Kuruluş: Osman, I easily compiled a list of five other actors named Burak while writing this piece2 (and I know I missed some).
Burak is a religious name (it was the name of the Prophet Muhammed’s magical steed) and hence my first rule: names of religious figures retain the gender of that figure as depicted in the Qur’an.3 Mehmet/Hussein/Ibrahim/Ali etc. are masculine, and Zeynep/Fatima/Fatoş/Hatice/Ayşe etc. are feminine.
Özge is likewise a very common feminine name. In fact, the two names are so common that there is currently a second TV couple with the same given names - Burak Berkay Akgül and Özge Yağız, from ATV’s Safir.
Not all names beginning with the syllable “Öz” are feminine though. The ones I could find were evenly split - Özge and Özlem are feminine, Özcan and Özgü are neutral, and Özalp and Özdemir are super-masculine (the first is roughly equivalent to “Braveheart”,4 while the second is “Pure Iron”).
Note that I deliberately put Burak Özçivit’s name first in this example. If you read a story about a celebrity couple on televizyongazetesi.com, the more famous of the pair will have their name listed first (Kuruluş: Osman was Özge Törer’s first dizi). Compare the other Burak/Özge where Özge Yağız gets listed first as she has been in a couple of really long-running series.
I’ll randomise the order of the names from now on with a coin toss or something. Here is the next pair: Fahriye and Fahrettin, featuring a big easy clue - can you match faces and names?
Fahriye Evcen Özçivit and Fahrettin Cüreklibatır
The names Fahriye and Fahrettin both originate from the same Arabic root ف خ ر (f-ḵ-r) which is to do with pride and glory. Since Arabic is a gendered language, you could figure out that Fahriye is feminine if you knew the Arabic spelling (فخرية), but frankly noone will have got to the answer that way. Instead, the clue was in Fahriye Evcen Özçivit’s third name - she’s married to Burak Özçivit from the previous example.5
In Türkiye, fixed hereditary surnames are a relatively recent addition to the culture. After the Surname Law was adopted on 21 June 1934, every family had to choose an official surname (so for instance, Mustafa Kemal became Mustafa Kemal Atatürk). This was often done by formalising the informal patronymics that were already in common use, hence the many Turkish surnames ending in “-oğlu”, meaning “son of -”. Wikipedia says that the Surname Law was repealed in 2013, and so some of the rules are no longer in force (such as the ban on “foreign” surnames, and the stipulation that the male head of the household got to make the final choice). However, since the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet of 1928 is still in force under the Turkish Constitution, certain rules around new names on birth certificates remain in effect. If Elon Musk’s child “X AE A-XII Musk” had been born a Turkish citizen, the X’s would need to be spelled out as “Eks” on his birth certificate; similarly for other characters that don’t appear in the Turkish alphabet such as Q or W (I’m not sure if the dash would be allowed or not).
On marriage in Türkiye, women can choose to keep their maiden names, adopt their husband’s surname, or both (as Fahriye above has done).
If you didn’t recognise Fahrettin Cüreklibatır, it was the birth name of the actor whose stage name was Cüneyt Arkın. His picture above is screenshotted from the movie Köroğlu (1968), where he appears with Fatma Girik and her excellent moustache. “Köroğlu” means “son of the blind man”, and is the name of a famous Robin Hood-type character in Turkish folklore.
Cüneyt Arkın and Fatma Girik, two greats of Turkish cinema, died within 6 months of each other in 2022. I wrote a eulogy for Cüneyt Arkın at the time, mentioning among other things that he starred in the worst movie ever made (Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (1982) (“The Man Who Saved the World”)), which naturally has a cult following.
The next pair of names features a truly awesome Turkish surname - Gümülcinelioğlu, meaning “son of the guy from Gümülcine”, that place being the city known in Greek as “Komotini”. But the surname gives you no clue as to the first name - can you match the names Başak and Barış to the faces?
Başak Gümülcinelioğlu and Barış Arduç
Turkish names often have identical spelling to everyday words in Turkish - the word “barış” means “peace”, while “başak” is the word for an ear of grain. So how do you avoid confusion between name and word? The two can be pronounced differently, with different syllables being stressed. Here are examples excerpted from an excellent textbook,6 where the syllable that should be stressed is indicated both in bold and with an exclamation mark:
barış ( . ! ) peace
Barış ( ! . ) male namezafer ( . ! ) victory
Zafer ( ! . ) male namebahar ( . ! ) spring
Bahar ( ! . ) female nameşirin ( . ! ) sweet / charming
Şirin ( ! . ) female namedeniz ( . ! ) sea
Deniz ( ! . ) unisex nameşafak ( . ! ) dawn / morning twilight
Şafak ( ! . ) unisex name
It isn’t always this predictable though: as far as I can tell, the word “başak” and the feminine name “Başak” are both pronounced with the stress on the final syllable (as is “Başak”, which is the Turkish name for the constellation of Virgo).
There are also some rules for pronunciation of place names that I won’t yet claim to understand; all I know is that “İstanbul” ( . ! . ) and “Ankara” ( ! . . ) are correct.
Now to the next pair of names - Yağmur and Yiğit, both names personal favourites of mine for their pure Turkish uniqueness. Can you match the faces to the names?
Yağmur Tanrısevsin and Yiğit Özşener
Again, both these names are also normal Turkish words; “Yiğit” is a masculine name meaning “valiant”, while “Yağmur” is a (mostly) feminine name meaning “rain”. You’ll have started to notice that characteristics traditionally regarded as masculine or feminine are pretty similar between Türkiye and the West - words to do with bravery or strength end up as masculine given names, while words for nature and beautiful things are traditionally feminine given names. Note this matters in the case of given names only; many of the following given names can also be surnames, which are hereditary (i.e. you don’t get to choose them) and therefore any gendered meaning has no practical effect. Hence the following:
Words for precious stones and the like usually become feminine names: Safir (“Sapphire”), İnci (“Pearl”), Zümrüt (“Emerald”), and İpek (“Silk”) are feminine; but not Yakut (“Ruby”) which is unisex.
Words to do with war and fighting become masculine names (Savaş, Cenk, Zafer, Fetih and many more)
Names to do with flowers are generally feminine: Goncagül, Betigül and anything else with gül (“rose”) in it; also Nilüfer (“Lotus”). Similarly for other nature-words: Selvi (“Cypress”), Yaprak (“Leaf”), Pınar (“Spring [water]”), Yağmur (“Rain”), and Nehir (“River”) are all feminine; but note that Derya and Deniz (both meaning “Sea”) are unisex.
Forces of nature became masculine names: Ateş (“Fire”), Tufan (“Flood”), and Rüzgâr (“Wind”). Yıldırım (“Lightning”) is apparently masculine but I can only find examples of it as a surname.
Moving on to some really old names: the next pair is Gökhan and Gökçe. Can you match the names to the faces?
Gökçe Bahadır and Gökhan Atalay
Some names hearken back to ancient pre-Islamic concepts: the Eternal Sky above and the Dark Earth below, the humans in between and the spirits in all things. Many of these naming concepts are unisex, perhaps because the stories about the Old Gods gave them both male and female aspects. Gökçe (roughly equivalent to the English name “Sky”) is usually feminine, Gökhan (“Sky-Khan”) is masculine. Aybüke (“Moon-Princess”) is feminine, Aykut (“Blessed Moon”) is masculine. Bengi and Bengü (both meaning “Eternal”) are usually feminine. The names of ancient Turkic gods, such as Umay and Ülgen, are still bestowed on unsuspecting children to this day; however the name Erlik, corresponding to the Turkic god of death and the underworld, only seems to appear as a surname.
Back to Islamic names for a moment, there’s one more rule that usually holds: any name with “Nur” in it is usually feminine. In Sufi Islam “nūr” is the light that existed before creation, and all things were created from it (Wikipedia link). You’ll find that names like Nur, Şennur, and Şifanur7 are usually feminine, but watch out for Onur which is masculine - it’s a loanword from the French “honneur” (“honour”).
(In a TV-related aside, the energy wielded by Kamala Khan, Muslim superhero and star of Ms. Marvel (Disney+ 2022) was named as “noor”. I don’t think it was the same in the comics, though)
Here’s the next pair of names: Tuğçe and Tezhan. Match them up!
Tuğçe Açıkgöz and Tezhan Tezcan
I only put Tezhan Tezcan in because I like the poetry of his very unusual name. (maybe it’s even a stage name?). The feminine name Tuğçe, however, has a cool etymology that is best illustrated with the following picture from Wikipedia:
The Tuğ is a traditional horsehair banner, used by the Ottomans and by Turkic and Mongol tribes in general. If your name is Tuğçe, I guess it suggests that your hair looks like a Tuğ? Great visual image anyway.
Beware of any black-haired people called Tuğçe, though; apparently when the Mongols got the black banners out, it meant war. Wikipedia suggests that the Mongolian Ministry of Defense still keeps black Tuğ in case they go to war again.
Finally, what do you do when two names are so similar that you struggle to remember which is which? I present to you Hilal and Halil - one name is masculine, the other is feminine. Match them!
Hilal Altınbilek and Halil İbrahim Ceyhan
A language-learning method that, for me, has mixed results is to cram huge lists of new vocabulary into your head all at once, then use spaced repetition to keep it there. Although some of it sticks, without context I can’t differentiate closely similar words. For example, a pair of verbs that I have trouble with are “temsil etmek” (“to represent”), and “teslim etmek” (“to hand over; to deliver”). I met these two lookalikes around the same time, and now every time I come across either of them I have to think very carefully to remember which is which.
The trick is to have some extra syllables associated in your memory with one of the difficult words, which breaks the similarity. For some reason I easily remember that “teslimat” is a real word - it is a noun meaning “delivery”. When I see “teslim/temsil etmek”, I mentally try to match with the word “teslimat”; only “teslim” fits, so it must be the one about delivering.
The same thing works with names. For some reason I find the name Hilal Altınbilek easy to remember. I can use this binomial to remember the difference between Hilal and Halil (Hilal is the feminine name, for anyone still playing the quiz). Similarly for other close pairs like Selim and Selin, which I can remember by thinking of the actor Selim Bayraktar. And if I need to remember the Turkish word for a comb (“tarak”), I can only do it by thinking of the character Tarık from Kara Sevda (Star TV) played by Rüzgar Aksoy.
You need more than one mental hook to hang second-language vocabulary on, if you’re going to memorise it successfully. Neuroscientists call this “elaborative encoding”. It works best if the elaborative hooks themselves are rich, meaningful memories, such as the layout of your childhood home, and the associations you make between the old memories and the new material to be remembered are as outlandish, vulgar or ridiculous as possible.
I put it to you that Turkish actors are particularly good elaborative mnemonic hooks. Your favourite TV shows will have good emotional memories attached, and the actors will be strongly associated with a limited number of familiar set locations, which you can mentally decorate with further memories.
But Turkish actors have one more set of mnemonic hooks available, since their names have such obvious meanings. Take Hilal Altınbilek, whose name translates as “Crescent-Moon Goldenwrist”. To get the most out of such a gloriously emotive name, let’s use it to memorise something more difficult - the names and functions of the three major nerves in the hand and wrist. C’mon, I promise it will be fun.
Here’s Hilal Altınbilek in a promo shot for her new show Şahane Hayatım (FoxTV; first episode was broadcast on Nov 1).
Since she’s holding a knife in that picture, she won’t mind if we mentally put her in a dangerous situation. Picture her in a fight scene, dressed exactly as she is in that shot.
Who is her antagonist? Her husband in Şahane Hayatım is played by Yiğit Özşener, the one who was dressed like a pirate in one of the quiz questions up above; he can play the baddie for us. Here’s another shot of him looking threatening in Barbaroslar: Akdeniz’in Kılıcı (TRT1):
Picture the two of them facing off. Yiğit Özşener says “If you can’t pass your neuroanatomy exam, you’ll never defeat me!”
Hilal Altınbilek summons her inner calm, and pushes it out into her open hand. “Stop!”, she says. Her hand is flat with the thumb spread.
“When you hold your hand like that, you’re using muscles controlled by your radial nerve”, says Yiğit Özşener helpfully. He takes out a red Sharpie and writes “radial nerve” in smooth, flowing calligraphy, beginning on the back of her hand towards her thumb, and ending up diagonally across at the elbow.
Hilal Altınbilek is not fazed. Ready to attack, she curls her hand into a fist, but there is a sudden electrical jolt of pain. “Ow! My carpal tunnel syndrome!”, she cries.
“That’s your median nerve that you use when you make a fist” says Yiğit Özşener again. With his red Sharpie he writes “MEDIAN NERVE” in heavy block letters, right next to the pulse in her wrist.
With that, the pain fades, and she strikes. Yiğit Özşener is defeated, and he falls to the ground. “You win!” he gasps, gesturing weakly at his neck: “Take your prize…”. Something glimmers there among the red ruffles and leather.
It’s a golden chain. Kneeling carefully in her salmon-coloured evening wear, Hilal Altınbilek forms her fingers into a pair of scissors; ring- and little fingers clawed, index and middle fingers spread, and thumb adducted. She magically snips through the chain, removing it intact along with the tiny charms that dangle from it.
As she does so, she bumps her elbow. “Ow! My funny bone!” she cries.
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Yiğit Özşener regains consciousness briefly in order to offer further help. “You bumped your ulnar nerve, which controls the muscles needed to make the scissors-shape.” Weakly, he writes “ulnar nerve” in sharp red letters on the pale skin of her inner wrist, down near the little finger.
Standing, Hilal Altınbilek offers the golden chain to you, the reader. “Here, you’ll need this more than I do.” You can see the charms on the bracelet more clearly now; there are three, symbolising the ancient game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. She gently lays the bracelet across your wrist, fastening it with a clasp like a crescent. “Hilal means ‘crescent moon’”, she explains. “If others should give you magical memory-jewelery, you’ll remember that this piece was from me.”
The charms settle easily into place on your wrist.
The Paper-charm rests on the back of your hand near the thumb, rustling slightly against the hairs there.
The ROCK-charm rests heavily on your wrist, just beside the brachial pulse.
The Scissors-charm rests lower down, toward the pinky. It feels sharp against your inner wrist, but you know it won’t cut you.
The above piece is an experiment for me, so thankyou for indulging. I never took a human anatomy class at University, but I remember the Med. students complaining. I want to see how well this memory technique works for me; how many details I can remember at some future time from the story of the golden charm bracelet with the crescent-moon clasp. Note that I claim no credit for the Rock-Paper-Scissors mnemonic - it’s from this paper with the images above.8 Additional information from the ASSH site.
This sort of memory trick seems to be the only way you can get to be a super-memoriser; the ones who can quickly learn the order of a shuffled pack of cards and recite it back to you. By all means try it yourself - make up stories about your family members, favourite actors, familiar places and so on, and hang pieces of information there to be remembered. The Wikipedia article has some example systems to try.
Looking up names at the TDK
Finally, the instructions on how to look up whether a name is masculine or feminine or neutral. You could Google “Hilal erkek mi kız mı”, but the results will be nothing more than endless SEO-optimised baby-name sites. Instead, some official answers are available in one of the TDK’s dictionaries. Go to sozluk.gov.tr and select the pull-down “Sözlük Seç” (“choose dictionary”) next to the search box:
The dictionary you want is the “Kişi Adlan Sözlüğü” (“personal names dictionary”). Select “Ada Göre Ara” (“search by name”) as I have in the picture, and deselect everything else. Type in the name and search:
“Cinsiyet” is the word for gender/sex; here “kız” means feminine.
“Anlama Göre Ara” (“search by meaning of name”) might also amuse you, and the other dictionaries are useful too. Have fun!
Here’s a recent terrible article for you, about an actor that I like (Google translated): “Hazal Filiz Küçükköse, who was haunted by misfortunes, started trying a new image!” TL;DR: Hazal Filiz Küçükköse cut her hair with a fringe (“bangs”, for those who speak American). Still, while reading this tripe I learned a couple of fun words - “talihsizlikler” (“misfortunes”), and “kâkül” (“fringe”). Also, “Filiz” is a great name for an actor, since Filiz Akın was one of the greats of Turkish cinema; and “Küçükköse” is an excellent surname, meaning “having a small, sparse beard”.
Burak Sevinç, Burak Sergen, Burak Can, Burak Deniz and Burak Berkay Akgül
The supposed gender of the magical steed is not precisely nailed down; it is generally thought of as male, but according to Wikipedia “Ibn Sa'd has Gabriel address the creature as a female, and it was often rendered by painters and sculptors with a woman's head”
No, the title of the Mel Gibson movie “Braveheart” was instead translated literally for Turkish release: “Cesur Yürek”.
You can assume any celebrity couple will be a traditional gender binary. Although LGBT people have historically been less persecuted in Türkiye than in other Muslim countries (private homosexual acts were decriminalised in 1858), gay marriage is not recognised. You won’t see non-traditional relationships on conservative Turkish TV, but there are plenty of positive depictions in Turkish-language content on Netflix etc.
“The Oxford Turkish Grammar”, Gerjan van Schaaik, Oxford University Press (2020)
Şifanur is an uncommon name, likely to become more common when babies are named after actor Şifanur Gül who has recently gotten lots of work on Netflix. She complains here that she was teased about the name Şifanur her whole life.
Kucukkose actually means "the little beardless".
"I’m not sure if the dash would be allowed or not" No dash allowed, only the 29 alphabet characters. Also it needs to be pronounceable so Elon would have to look for another name.
Great article!