An Analysis on the Socio-Cultural Change of Turkey Based on the Child's Given Names

He names of people are important indicators of personal identities while being significant references of their communities. in this study, the names given to children in turkey starting from the establishment of turkish republic in 1923 till today were analyzed to understand the socio-cultural transformation of turkey. within the scope of the study, the most popular 20 names of girls and boys between 1923 and 2010 were investigated through the content analyses method. the change in tendency of naming children in turkey was observed in ten-year periods. it was revealed that the most significant change in popular name lists occurred between 1960 and 1990. the growth in urbanization process starting from 1960 was started to affect families to find modern names instead of traditional ones having religious patterns. however, since 1990s; the religious effect has re-gained its importance in the popular name list with the recent conservative approaches in governmental politics. the development of turkey’s urbanization process together with modern and traditional values was also evaluated based on the children’s given names. it was seen that popular culture which has influence on most of our daily lives was also effective on naming children.