Tamara (given name)
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".
Gender | Female |
---|---|
Origin | |
Word/name | Arabic/Hebrew |
Meaning | "date" (the fruit), "date palm", "palm tree" |
Other names | |
Related names | Tammy, Tamy, Tami, Tammii, Tam |
In central and eastern European countries like Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, 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. It is 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, Tamira 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]
People with the given name
- Tamara Adrián, Venezuelan politician
- Tamara Al-Gabbani, Middle Eastern fashion designer
- Tamara Arciuch, Polish actress
- Tamara Bleszynski, Indonesian actress, singer, and model
- Tamara Braun, American soap opera actress
- 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 Finkelstein, British civil servant
- Tamara Frolova, Russian politician
- Tamara Georgijev, Serbian handball player
- Tamara Gorski, Canadian actress
- Tamara Gverdtsiteli, Georgian-Russian singer, actress and composer, People's Artist of Ingushetia, Georgia and Russia.
- Kera Tamara, known as Tamara Hejtan, Bulgarian princess, the daughter of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander
- Tamara Jaber, Lebanese-Australian singer and songwriter
- Tamara Johnson, American indoor volleyball player
- Tamara Jones, singer and actress
- Tamara Karsavina, Russian ballerina
- Tamara Maria Kler or Tamara Hunkeler, Swiss DJ known by her stage name Dinka
- Tamara Larrea, Cuban beach volleyball player
- Tamara de Lempicka, Polish art deco painter
- Tamara Levitt, Canadian author, mindfulness instructor, and voice-over artist
- Tamara Makarova, Russian-Soviet actress
- 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 Morávková (born 2003), Slovak footballer
- Tamara Moskvina, Russian pairs figure skating coach
- 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 Samsonova, Russian murderer and suspected serial killer
- Tamara Macarena Valcárcel Serrano (born 1984), Spanish singer known as Tamara
- Tamara Sher, American psychologist
- Tamara Sky, DJ and model
- Tamara Sinyavskaya, Russian mezzo-soprano
- Tamara Smart (born 2005), English actress
- Tamara Sujú, Venezuelan activist
- Tamara Taylor, Canadian actress
- Tamara Todevska, Macedonian pop singer
- Tamara Toumanova, Georgian-Armenian ballerina and actress, active in Paris and Hollywood
- Tamara Tunie, American actress
- Tamara Venit-Shelton, American author and professor of American history
- Tamara Diane Wimer, known as Isis Gee, American singer
- Tamara Witmer, American actress and model
Fictional characters with the name
- Tamara (Hollyoaks), in the British soap opera Hollyoaks
- Princess Tamara, in the 1829/1839 poem Demon by Mikhail Lermontov
- Tamara, in Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders