L. Bazin'in 1964 yılında yayınladığı eski bir makale olmasına karşın Fransızca'dan dilimize kazandırmak üzere bazı açıklamalı notlarla tercüme ettiğimiz bu makale, Türk kültürü açısından büyük önem arzetmektedir. Zira Türk kültürünün en bilge atalarından birine verilmiş olan Korkut adının etimolojisi ve anlamına kanımızca eski Türk dini ve kültürü ile en çok örtüşen açıklamayı sunmuştur. Bazin, bu makalesinde Eski Türkçe'den günümüz Türkçesi'ne gelene kadar birçok Türkçe lehçede farklı şekiller altında görülen "Korkut" özel kişi adının etimolojisini incelemiştir. Daha önce L. Rásonyi tarafından önerilen, bu adın "korkutmak" fiilinin emir kipi olduğuna dair tezini yalanlamamakla birlikte yeni bir yaklaşımda bulunmuştur. Özbek Türkçesi'nde korunmuş olan kor-kut ikilemesinden yola çıkan Bazin, Korkut Ata veya Dede Korkut'a ismini veren bu kelimenin Türk dini açısından önem arz eden ve birbirleriyle ilişki kurulabilecek nitelikler taşıyan kor ve kut kelimelerinden oluştuğunu ileri sürmüştür. Türkler değişikliklerinden de ispatlamaya çalıştığı gibi, bu anlamın kaybolarak emir kipinden üretilen adın öne çıktığını; dolayısıyla her iki önermenin makbul savunmuştur. Türk ilim alemi için şimdiye kadar göz ardı edilmiş olan bu makale, kültürümüzün kilit taşlarından biri olan Korkut Ata veya Dede Korkut'un kimliği ve adının anlamı arasındaki bağlantıyı, Türk dilinin tarihi gelişiminde geçirdiği değişikliklerle birlikte sunmaktadır

This article presents Turkish translation of L. Bazin’s famous article “Le Nom Propre d’Homme “Qorqut”: Discussion Étymologique” published in 1964, with some explanatory notes. Although it had been published since over fifty years, we found its translation to Turkish as crucial because even it is one of the most important works dealt with the meaning of “Korkut”, the name given to the most famous wise ancestor of Turks, Dede Korkut, it is not widely known by Turkish academic world. We also tried both to give related literature for the personal name “Korkut” onwards and to compare some other ethymological approaches so far within translator’s notes. This additional work provided us a further evidence of the importance and superiority of Bazin’s etymological approach. In this very important article for Turkish culture, Bazin clearly took the origin of the etymological discussion from L. Rásonyi’s work, which mentioned Korkut in the long list he prepared for Turkish personal names made from imperatives. Although Bazin accepted initially his suggestion that Korkut means “korkut! (frigthen!)”, he was inspired later from the hendiadys qŭr-qut (kor-kut) that he encountered in an Uzbek-Russian dictionary, which means “accumulated property, wealth, treasure, reserves”. Thus, his article starts with the question “Is Dede Korkut a frightening person or is a (sagesse) treasure?”. To answer this question, first the known persons with the name Korkud/Korkut were listed to shed light to the meaning of this name, with the special focus to Dede Korkut. Then, he proposed that the Uzbek kor-kut word meaning entirely overlapped with the old Turkish conception of Dede Korkut and this expression was composed with the junction of two words: “kor” and “kut” highlighting “wealth” and “benediction”. Bazin later tried to reveal the meanings of “kut” and “kor” in old Turkish religion and culture respectively. Besides the known meanings of “kut”, he found in a Kirghiz dictionary that kut means: “fragment of the jelly material dark red which falls down from the top smoke hole of the tent and brings wealth to the person who catches”. This is important to reveal its resemblance to “kor” with its color and regarding the relationship between kut – top smoke hole of the tent and fire place (oven). He also underlined that this meaning of kut was totally in line with the cosmic conception of Turks and Mongols, where the vertical line connecting the fire place to the smoke hole in a tent represents the cosmic axis via which human world interacts with the divine world in the sky. Kor, the basic substance for the fire, had different phonetical forms in various Turkic dialects: *qōr / *qōz / *kȫr, *kȫz. Also, this word got two basic semantical forms under qōr and qor (with long and short “o”) forms. Same as the fire can be reproduced with its remainings under the ashes, the yogurt or other milk derivated products can be reproduced with their remainings, ferment. So, qōr or ġor (in Turkmen) words were used for both. On the other hand, Bazin indicated that as kor represented “fire reserves” ensuring the reproduction and its multiplication of the fire, it was extended with metaphoric meaning “accumulated property, wealth, treasure, reserves”. So, the Uzbek expression kor-kut is the result of this second semantical development. Finally, Bazin concluded that Korkut name, inspired from the fascinating oracle-poet Korkut Ata or Dedem Korkut should be older and more religious compared to the Uzbek kor-kut word. He also indicated that Korkud sonorisation in Oghuz dialect since 12th century indicated that it was accepted as a disyllable and the hendiadys was only preserved in Uzbek dialect. It was thus inevitable that the popular etymology “korkut!” was accepted from a certain date onwards. Bazin highlighted that both this etymology proposed by Rásonyi and the one proposed by himself were acceptable etymologies, however corresponding to different periods of Turkish language. After fifty years of Bazin’s article publication, Dede Korkut personality and the meaning of Korkut name were dealt intensively within Turkish literature. In our explanatory notes, we added some references to Turkish academicians’ works on this topic. In our investigation, we noticed that the etymology proposed by Bazin is still the most interesting, impressing and the most related one with old Turkish religion and cosmic conception. Meanwhile, it is the strongest proposal based on different Turkish dialects, revealing also the semantical and phonetical changes from past to present. Further researches are needed to re-evaluate Bazin’s etymology and compare it with newest approaches for Korkut name.