Tamara (given name)
Gender | Female |
---|---|
Origin | |
Word/name | Arabic/Hebrew |
Meaning | "date" (the fruit), "date palm", "palm tree" |
Other names | |
Related names | Tammy, Tamy, Tami, Tammii, Tam |
Tamara is a female given name most commonly derived from the Biblical name "Tamar" and in the Arabic from the singular form "Tamra" (Arabic: تَمْرَة tamrah) and the plural form "Tamar" (Arabic: تَمْر tamr), meaning in both Hebrew and Arabic the generic name of the fruit "date", "date palm" or "palm tree".
In central and eastern European countries like Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine it has been a common name for centuries. In Australia it was very popular from the 1960s to 1990s. One of the most popular names in Russia.
In the United States, the name was fairly common from the late 1950s to mid 1990s, bolstered by the popularity of the film Tammy and the Bachelor and its theme song (Tammy is commonly a nickname for Tamara). In the US the most girls named Tamara were born in 1970 and the number of Tamaras born per year was greater than 1,000 as late as 1996.[1]
The name is now fairly uncommon in the US: in 2010, the name fell off the Top 1000 SSA Baby Names list, with fewer than 250 baby girls named Tamara that year.[2]
Variants[]
Variations include Tamar, Temara, Tamra, Tamera, and Tamora. In North America Tamara is typically pronounced /ˈtæmərə/; in the United Kingdom and Australia it is sometimes pronounced as /təˈmɑːrə/; and in Russia /tɐˈmarə/ (written Тама́ра). In Arabic it is pronounced /tæˈmæːrɐ/ (written تمارا or تمارة). The most common US nickname for Tamara is Tammy or Tam, but other nicknames exist, such as Tatia (თათია) Tamar (თამარ) Tamuna (თამუნა), Tamari (თამარი), Tamriko (თამრიკო) or Tako (თაკო) in Georgia, Toma in Russia, Mara, Tama or Tara.
One notable occurrence of the name 'Tamora' in literature is a character in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. In this play, Tamora is an ambitious and vengeful woman. Her sons plan to rape the daughter of Titus Andronicus and Tamora refuses the girl's pleas to stop them. Titus, in revenge for the brutal rape and disfigurement of his daughter, kills the young men, has them baked into a pie, and serves the pie to Tamora. Titus tells her that she has just eaten her sons immediately before killing her.
The term 'tamarro' entered Italian through the Neapolitan dialect, meaning "lowlife", "scumbag", with a specific bent to people who have a very strong tendency to copy the general mode, have uncultured behaviour and tend to buy and flaunt expensive branded goods.[3]
Notable people[]
- Tamara Adrián, Venezuelan politician
- Tamara Al-Gabbani, Middle Eastern fashion designer
- Tamara Bleszynski, Indonesian actress, singer, and model
- Tamara Braun, American soap opera actress
- Tamara Sinyavskaya, Russian mezzo-soprano
- Tamara Buciuceanu, Romanian actress
- Tamara Bunke, better known as Tania the Guerrilla, a communist revolutionary
- Tamara Danz, German rock singer
- Tamara Degtyaryova (Russian: Тамара Васильевна Дегтярёва; 1944 – 2018), Russian stage, television and film actress
- Tamara Dobson, African-American actress and model
- Tamara Drasin, Ukrainian-born singer-actress
- Tamara Duisenova, Kazakh politician
- Tamara Ecclestone, English-Serbian socialite, television personality and model
- Tamara Feldman, American actress
- Tamara Frolova, Russian politician
- Tamara Georgijev, Serbian handball player
- Tamara Gverdtsiteli, Georgian-Russian singer, actress and composer, People's Artist of Ingushetia, Georgia and Russia.
- Tamara Jaber, Lebanese-Australian singer and songwriter
- Tamara Jones, singer and actress
- Tamara Karsavina, Russian ballerina
- Tamara Johnson, American indoor volleyball player
- Tamara Larrea, Cuban beach volleyball player
- Tamara de Lempicka, Polish art deco painter
- Tamara Maria Kler or Tamara Hunkeler, Swiss DJ known by her stage name Dinka
- Tamara Marthe, known as Shy'm, French singer
- Tamara McKinney, American skier
- Tamara Mello, American actress
- Tamara Mellon, president and founder of designer shoes company Jimmy Choo
- Tammy Faye Messner, American televangelist and reality TV star
- Tamara Metal, Israeli Olympic high jumper and long jumper, and captain of the Israel women's national basketball team
- Tamara Mkheidze, Georgian arachnologist
- Tamara Moskvina, Russian pairs figure skating coach
- Tamara Gorski, Canadian actor
- Tamara Moss, Indian model
- Tamara Gräfin von Nayhauß, German television presenter
- Tamara Pamyatnykh, Soviet fighter pilot during the Second World War
- Tamara Radočaj (born 1987), Serbian basketball player
- Tamara Rojo (born 1974), Spanish ballet dancer, artistic director of English National Ballet
- Tamara Salman, Iraqi-born designer
- Tamara Macarena Valcárcel Serrano (born 1984), Spanish singer known as Tamara
- Tamara Sher, American psychologist
- Tamara Smart (born 2005), English actress
- Tamara Sky, DJ and model
- Tamara Sujú, Venezuelan activist
- Tamara Taylor, Canadian actress
- Kera Tamara, known as Tamara Hejtan, Bulgarian princess, the daughter of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander
- Tamara Todevska, Macedonian pop singer
- Tamara Toumanova, Georgian-Armenian ballerina and actress, active in Paris and Hollywood
- Tamara Tunie, American actress
- Tamara Makarova, Russian-Soviet actress
- Tamara Venit-Shelton, American author and professor of American history
- Tamara Witmer, American actress and model
- Tamara Diane Wimer, known as Isis Gee, American singer
See also[]
- Tamsin (disambiguation)
- Tara (disambiguation)
- Palmyra
- Tamara (disambiguation)
References[]
- Given names
- Feminine given names
- English feminine given names
- Arabic feminine given names
- Spanish feminine given names
- Slavic feminine given names
- German feminine given names
- Romanian feminine given names
- Russian feminine given names
- Circassian feminine given names
- Czech feminine given names
- Polish feminine given names
- Slovak feminine given names
- Slovene feminine given names
- Macedonian feminine given names
- Croatian feminine given names
- Serbian feminine given names