Gender Female Meaning palm tree (and others) | Word/name Hebrew | |
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Tamara is a female given name most commonly derived from the Biblical name "Tamar", meaning date palm tree. In eastern European countries like Armenia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Macedonia, Russia, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Poland and Ukraine it has been a common name for centuries. In Australia it was very popular from the 1960s to 1990s. It is also used in Romania, although it is not very frequent.
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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 (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.
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.
In ancient Britain, Tamara was the goddess of rivers and streams. The River Tamar that forms the border between Devon and Cornwall derives its name from this spirit.
Variants
Variations include Tamar, Temara, Tamra, Tamera, and Tamora. In North America Tamara is typically pronounced Tam'-uh-ruh; in the United Kingdom and Australia it is sometimes pronounced as Tuh-mahr'-uh; and in Russia Taw-mahr' -uh. In Arabic it is pronounced Tah-mar-ah. The most common US nickname for Tamara is Tammy or Tam, but other nicknames exist, such as Tatia (თათია) Tamar (თამარ) or Tamuna (თამუნა) 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.