Turkish2 syllablesOld Turkic
Meaning: lion.
Aslan
| Origin | Turkish — from Old Turkic arslan, lion; standard modern Turkish dropped the r to give aslan |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Lion, plainly. The everyday Turkish word for the animal, used unchanged as a name |
| Pronunciation | ahs-LAHN in Turkish, stress on the second syllable. English speakers who arrive through Narnia usually say ASS-lan |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100; in Turkey it is both a given name and one of the most common surnames in the country |
| Variants | Arslan (the older form, still used in eastern Turkey and Central Asia), Kazakh Arystan, and Russian Ruslan, generally traced back to the same Turkic word |
| Nicknames | None in Turkish; the word is short enough already |
| In fiction | Aslan the lion of Narnia, named by C. S. Lewis directly from the Turkish word |
History & meaning
The Turkic word for a lion is arslan, and it has been a name for as long as it has been a word. Rulers took it as an epithet the way European kings took Coeur de Lion: the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan wore it in the eleventh century, and the sultans of Rum who met the First Crusade were Kılıç Arslan, sword lion. That first vowel in Kılıç is Turkish dotless ı, a separate letter from dotted i and a different sound — something close to the vowel at the end of sofa. Standard Turkish later softened arslan to aslan, and both spellings survive.
Aslan became a surname en masse in 1934, when the Surname Law required every citizen of the young republic to register a hereditary family name for the first time. Enormous numbers of families chose plain Turkish nouns — Aslan, Doğan, Demir, Yılmaz — which is why the word now does double duty. Outside Turkey, though, most people meet Aslan somewhere else entirely: C. S. Lewis gave the name to the lion of Narnia in 1950, and by his own account he had simply taken the Turkish word, which he had come across in the notes to Edward Lane's translation of the Arabian Nights. It is worth being clear-eyed about this. In America the name reads as Narnia first and Turkish second, and a family choosing it is choosing both.
Why parents choose it
It is a noun, not a wish. Aslan does not mean lion-like or brave as a lion; it means lion, and that directness is the appeal. Two syllables, no difficult letters, and an association almost every English-speaking child will recognise before they can spell it.
Middle names for Aslan
The name ends on a strong closed syllable, so a short second name keeps the momentum: Aslan Kaan, Aslan Emre, Aslan Mert, Aslan Timur. Avoid a middle name starting with a vowel; the run of open sounds blurs. More on this in the middle names guide.
Famous Aslans
Kılıç Arslan I, sultan of Rum from 1092, fought the armies of the First Crusade across Anatolia. In the present day the tennis player Aslan Karatsev reached the Australian Open semi-finals in 2021 on his Grand Slam main-draw debut. And in Istanbul the word is a chant: Galatasaray's supporters have called their side the Lions for a century.
Consider instead
Alparslan is the same lion with a hero in front of it. Simba is the Swahili word for the same animal, with its own screen baggage. Leon takes the Greek route to the identical meaning and sounds entirely European doing it.