Timur is a Turkic name that means "iron", from the word temür, and it is shared by Turkish, Tatar, Uzbek and Russian speakers. Its most famous bearer is the 14th-century conqueror Timur, known in the West as Tamerlane, who built an empire from his capital at Samarkand. In the United States the name is carried mostly by families from Turkey, Central Asia and the former Soviet Union; it rose from number 9036 in 2000 to number 2214 in 2017 and ranks number 2639 in 2025.