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Tamara (given name)

Feminine given name From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tamara is a variant of the Hebrew feminine given name Tamar, a biblical name.[a] The variant originated in the Russian language and spread into other languages through Russian.[5][4] In Russia, where Tamara is associated with Tamar of Georgia,[6][7][b] the name remains popular and frequently appears in Russian literature.[10][11] It is also common in Central, Eastern, and Southeast European countries.[12][13]

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Tamara
Pronunciation/təˈmɑːrə, təˈmɛərə, ˈtæmərə/[1]
GenderFeminine
Language(s)Various
Origin
Word/nameDerived in Russian from the biblical name Tamar (Hebrew: תָּמָר) and spread to various other languages
Other names
Alternative spellingTammara
Variant form(s)Tamra, Tamera, Thamara
Short form(s)English: Tammie, Tammy
Russian: Mara, Tama
Pet form(s)Toma (Russian)
[2][3]
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The name was formed through adding the Russian feminine suffix -a to Tamar (Hebrew: תָּמָר), which originated from the same generic noun for "date" (the fruit), "date palm" or just "palm tree". The derived Russian diminutive name is Toma, and its other shortened forms include Tama, Mara, Tata, and Tusya.[2][14]

It first appeared in the English-speaking world in the 1930s and reached its peak in the 1970s. In the 1980s, it gained particular popularity among Black Americans.[11] In the United States, the name was quite common from the late 1950s to mid-1990;[15] more than 1,000 girls were named Tamara annually through 1996, with the highest numbers occurring in the 1970s.[16] As of 2023, Tamara is relatively uncommon in the United States; in 2010, it dropped off the Top 1,000 Social Security Administration baby names list, with fewer than 250 instances recorded that year.[15] Since the 1930s, Tamara has ranked among the top 320 most popular names in Australia, with peak popularity from the 1970s through the 1990s.[17][12]

In the United Kingdom, it was the 137th most popular girl's name in 1997 but had dropped to 779th in 2021 when it was given to 47 babies.[18] Cornish legends include a character named Tamara, associated with the River Tamar,[19] whose name is of Celtic origin.[20][c] According to Mabel Quiller-Couch's telling of the legend, Tamara was a sprite, the child of underground-living gnomes, who escaped to the earth's surface near Morwenstow and was turned into a river by her father when she refused to return underground, while the giants Tawridge and Tavy from Dartmoor, who fell in love with her, became the rivers Taw and Tavy.[25] The Tamara Coast to Coast Way is an 87-mile (140 km) walking route following the river Tamar.[26]

The name was also popular in Spain during the 1980s, possibly influenced by the daughter of Isabel Preysler and Carlos Falcó, Tamara Falcó.[10]

People named Tamara

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Notable people with the given name Tamara include:

In the arts

Politicians and activists

Sportspeople

Others

This section lists people that share the same given name.
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See also

Notes

  1. There are three biblical women named Tamar: One is Tamar of the book of Genesis—daughter-in-law of Judah. Another is Tamar, daughter of David; she was raped by her half-brother Amnon, who was then killed by Absalom, her full brother. Absalom named his daughter also Tamar, described as a woman of great beauty.[4]
  2. recognised by the Orthodox church as Saint Tamara the Right Believing[8][9]
  3. In the Latin translation of Ptolemy's Geography, The Latin name of the Tamar is Tamarus, whereas one of the settlements on the river is named Tamara.[21][22][23]
    Tamara occurs as a latinised name of the Tamar in John Milton's poem Epitaphium Damonis, the final of the Latin poems in his 1645 Poems collection.[24]

References

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