Tamara (given name)


Tamara is understood to mean "date", referring to the fruit of the date palm tree. In other words, the name carries the literal meaning of the sweet date fruit. This is not merely a coincidental interpretation as it is rooted in the Arabic language itself. The common Arabic word for dates is tamr, and its singular form tamra means "a date ". The given name Tamara derives from this very word, thereby directly conveying the meaning "date" or "date palm" in an Arabic context.
Tamara is also a variant of the Hebrew feminine given name Tamar, a biblical name. appearing in the Bible as the name of several women. Tamara represents a later linguistic adaptation that became widespread across languages and regions. The variant originated in the Russian language and spread into other languages through Russian. In Russia, where Tamara is associated with Tamar of Georgia, the name remains popular and frequently appears in Russian literature. It is also common in Central, Eastern, and Southeast European countries.
The name was formed through adding the Russian feminine suffix -a to Tamar, which originated from the same generic noun for "date", "date palm" or just "palm tree". The derived Russian diminutive name is Toma, and its other shortened forms include Tama, Mara, Tata, and Tusya.
It first appeared in the English-speaking world in the 1930s and reached its peak in the 1970s. In the 1980s, it gained popularity among Black Americans. In the United States, the name was quite common from the late 1950s to mid-1990; more than 1,000 girls were named Tamara annually through 1996, with the highest numbers occurring in the 1970s. 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. Since the 1930s, Tamara has ranked among the top 320 most popular names in Australia, with peak popularity from the 1970s through the 1990s.
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. Cornish legends include a character named Tamara, associated with the River Tamar, whose name is of Celtic origin. 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. The Tamara Coast to Coast Way is an walking route following the river Tamar.
The name was also popular in Spain during the 1980s, possibly influenced by the daughter of Isabel Preysler and Carlos Falcó, Tamara Falcó.

People named Tamara

Notable people with the given name Tamara include:

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