Given name & surname
Orhan
“administrator of a city”
Orhan is used as a given name and a surname. One Turkish interpretation is “administrator of a city.”
Original TurkishOrkan
Meaning & origin
What it means
One Turkish interpretation is “administrator of a city.”
Where it comes from
Orhan comes from Ottoman Turkish, and ultimately from Proto-Turkic.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1997. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Orhan through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 477
- 477 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2025
- 92 babies
- 2025
- 92
- #1,763 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +477%
- Rising fast
Where it’s given
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 92 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 1,763 among boys’ names. Average annual use for boys was 477.2% higher in 2021–2025 than in 2016–2020. In 2025, California had the largest reported state-level birth count for boys with this name (26). Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 539 as a first name in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Orhan’s family of names
In Turkish usage, Orhan has a related form in ORKAN. In Turkish usage, Orhan continues an earlier form in اورخان. In Italian usage, Orhan as a surname has a related form in Orcano.
Inner ring: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 2
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Orhan
- Orhan PamukTurkish novelist, academic and Nobel laureate (born 1952)
- Orhansecond Ottoman Sultan (r. ca. 1324–1362)1281–1362
- Orhan Veli KanıkTurkish poet (1914–1950)
- Orhan KemalTurkish novelist (1914–1970)
- Orhan GencebayTurkish actor and singer (born 1944)
- Orkhan SafarovAzerbaijani judokaborn 1991
- Orhan ÇelebiOttoman prince1412–1453
- DJ QuicksilverTurkish disc jockey and record producer (born 1964)
- Orhan AdemiTurkish-Swiss association football player (born 1991)
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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