Georgian Names: Male and Female Names, Meanings and Spelling

Put ten Georgian men in a room and at least one will almost certainly be called Giorgi. Among the women you will meet a Nino or a Tamar. Next to them live Avtandils, Nestans and Mzias, names you will not find anywhere else in the world. Each carries a piece of history: the saint who converted the country, the queen under whom Georgia was at its strongest, or a 12th-century poem that schoolchildren still learn by heart. Here is what Georgian names mean and how to write your own name in Georgian.

Where Georgian names come from

Almost every Georgian name falls into one of four groups:

• Christian names. Georgia adopted Christianity in the 4th century, and saints' names are the most widespread: Giorgi, Nino, Mariam, Nikoloz, Elene. Many arrived via Greek, so they sound different from their English versions: Ioane for John, Petre for Peter.
• Royal names. Davit, Bagrat, Vakhtang, Tamar, Rusudan, Lasha are the names of rulers every schoolchild knows. Calling a son Davit is a nod to David the Builder.
• Literary names. Shota Rustaveli's epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin gave the country a whole set of names: Tariel, Avtandil, Nestan, Tinatin.
• Word names. Simple Georgian words such as sun, violet, rose and light became girls' names.

A separate layer arrived through Persian literature: Zurab, Nodar, Rostom. They are a trace of the centuries when the Shahnameh was read at the Georgian court.

Many of these names go back to St Nino and the conversion of Georgia. Mtskheta, where she preached, is half an hour from Tbilisi: see our Mtskheta day trip guide.

Georgian male names

Here are 20 male names you will hear most often in Georgia, with their Georgian spelling. The forms in brackets are what people are actually called day to day.

Note the -i ending: in Georgian you write "Daviti", "Zurabi", "Levani". It is not part of the name but the nominative case ending, so the same person may appear as Davit or Daviti depending on the text.

Georgian female names

Female names split almost evenly between saints and queens on one side and "meaningful" names taken from Georgian words on the other.

Dictionary: 57 more Georgian names

Above are the 40 most common names. Here are 57 more you will meet in Georgia, from biblical names to those honouring writers, actresses and champions. A meaning is given only where it is well established; otherwise, the namesake who made the name popular.

Male names

Female names

Names from The Knight in the Panther's Skin

Rustaveli's poem, written in the age of Queen Tamar, holds the place in Georgian culture that Shakespeare holds in English. Lines from it are quoted at weddings, and a copy was once part of a bride's dowry. The heroes' names are still in use:

• Tariel, the knight in the panther's skin and main hero;
• Avtandil, his sworn brother who sets off to find him;
• Nestan-Darejan, Tariel's beloved, usually shortened to Nestan;
• Tinatin, the princess loved by Avtandil;
• Pridon, the third sworn brother, a rarer name today.

If you meet an Avtandil or a Tinatin, ask whether their parents loved the poem. You will probably hear a whole story.

Names that are words: Mzia, Ia, Vardo

The most poetic Georgian women's names are ordinary words:

• Mzia, from mze, "sun";
• Ia, "violet";
• Vardo, from vardi, "rose";
• Natia and Natela, which echo nateli, "light";
• Dali, the goddess of the hunt in Svan legends;
• Lamara, which by one account comes from the Svan name for the Virgin Mary.

This is rarer for boys, who are more often named after saints, kings and heroes.

Name days: Giorgoba, Mariamoba, Barbaroba

In Georgia a saint's day often matters more than a birthday. The church feast becomes a celebration for everyone who bears the saint's name, and often for the whole country. The key dates:

Visit Georgia in late November and on Giorgoba you will find packed churches and feasts across the country, since every family has at least one Giorgi. The feast and the toasts to the name-day person are a ritual of their own, covered in our guide to Georgian toasts.

Names in different regions of Georgia

Georgians can often guess where someone is from by the name, or by its form:

• Samegrelo: Mingrelian forms such as Gudu, Jojo and Bondo, and women's names ending in -ua and -ia. Mingrelians often use short family versions.
• Svaneti: ancient local names tied to old cults and the Svan language. Dali, the goddess of the hunt, comes from here.
• Adjara: the older generation includes Muslim names such as Osmani, Memed, Fatima and Aishe. Younger people here mostly carry pan-Georgian names.
• Mountain regions of Khevsureti and Tusheti: old families keep rare local names you will not hear in the city.

How Georgians choose a baby's name

Traditionally a boy was named after his paternal grandfather and a girl after her grandmother, so names skip a generation: Giorgi, son of Davit, grandson of Giorgi. Godparents (natlia) play a big role and sometimes suggest the name. Many parents now pick a name from the church calendar, and recently short names that work abroad have become fashionable. Naming a child after a living relative in the same household is avoided as bad luck.

Popular Georgian names today

Naming fashions change more slowly in Georgia than in Western Europe, but they do change. Official lists of the most frequent newborn names in recent years regularly include:

• boys: Giorgi, Luka, Nikoloz, Davit, Saba, Aleksandre, Dachi, Lazare;
• girls: Mariam, Nino, Elene, Barbare, Ana, Anastasia, Lizi, Salome.

Short, international names like Luka, Ana and Lizi are on the rise. Even so, Giorgi has been the most common male name across all ages for many years.

Nicknames and diminutives: Tamuna, Niniko, Dato

Georgians rarely use full names outside official papers. Every name has a family form:

• the suffix -iko: Niniko, Tamriko, Leliko, Sandriko;
• the suffix -una: Tamuna, Nanuka;
• short forms: Giorgi → Gogi, Gio, Gia; Davit → Dato; Ketevan → Keto; Nikoloz → Nika;
• in Samegrelo, forms ending in -ua and -ia are common.

A grown man called Davit will be Dato to his friends for life, and nobody finds that odd.

How to address a Georgian: batono and kalbatono

Georgian documents have no patronymic, only a first name and surname. Politeness works differently: to a man you say batono plus his name (batono Giorgi), to a woman kalbatono plus her name (kalbatono Nino). Use it with elders, your guide or your guesthouse host. On its own, "batono" also serves as a polite "yes?" More useful words are in our guides to Georgian phrases for travellers.

How Georgian names are spelled in Latin letters

Georgia uses a national romanisation system for passports and official documents: Giorgi, Davit, Ketevan, Tamar, Mariam. The letter ჯ becomes j (Jaba, Jemal), ღ becomes gh, ყ becomes q and შ becomes sh (Shota). You will still see older spellings such as Georgi or David, especially among Georgians living abroad, and both are understood.

Pronunciation is simpler than it looks: every letter is read, stress is light and usually on the first syllable, so Ketevan is KE-te-van and Nikoloz is NI-ko-loz.

How to write your name in Georgian

Many English names have a traditional Georgian form, and that is the version you will see on icons and in books:

If your name is not on the list, it is simply written in Georgian letters by sound. The alphabet is phonetic, so this is easy. Learn each letter in our Georgian alphabet guide. For surnames with their famous -shvili and -dze endings, see our guide to Georgian surnames.