Nicknames for Zara
28 ideas for Zara — the short forms people actually use, plus cute, funny and gamer versions. Copy any of them in one click.
- Zaza the doubled affectionate form
- Zaz the tight clip
- Z initial only, and it works as a name
- Zar the blunt clip
- Zari the softened affectionate form
- Zahra the Arabic name Zara is usually traced to
- Zahrah the Urdu spelling
- Zahara the Hebrew form
- Zaara the South Asian double-a spelling
- Zarah the h-ending spelling
- Zarina the Persian and Central Asian elaborated form
- Zizi the other doubling, family use
- Zar-Zar doubled, family and childhood use
- Zaru the -u ending used in South Asian families
- Zara-beta beta, the affectionate word parents use
- Zara-baji baji, the Urdu word for older sister
- Blossom what the Arabic zahra means
- Radiant the other sense of the Arabic root
- Zaz-Bear the affectionate compound used abroad
- Zaz-Bug family pet name used abroad
- Zars the friend version used abroad
- High Street the shop joke every Zara has fielded
- Zaza-Zoo the nonsense rhyme, siblings only
- Zorro the escalation of Zaz, said once
- Zaira the Italian and Spanish spelling
- Zary Zara with the ending people add when they like you.
- Zaro Zara with the ending people add when they like you.
- Zarie Zara with the ending people add when they like you.
About the name Zara.
Zara has at least three origin stories and no consensus, which is unusual for a name this popular. The strongest thread runs through Arabic zahrah, blossom or flower, the word behind al-Zahra, the epithet of the Prophet's daughter. A second treats it as a European reshaping of Sarah by way of Zaïre, a character in an eighteenth-century Voltaire tragedy. A third is simply the shop, founded in 1975, which put the four letters on every high street in Europe. British usage got a further push in 1981 when Princess Anne named her daughter Zara. All three streams feed the same steeply rising line in the birth data.
Sleek, symmetrical and faintly commercial, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on who you ask. The two open a sounds make it carry well across a room. It resists nicknames, being already two syllables of near-pure vowel; Zaza is the only one that regularly sticks.
Most popular around 2020. Based on US birth records.
- Origin
- Arabic, contested
- Meaning
- blossom, flower; sometimes radiance
- Syllables
- Za·ra
- Used as
- a girls’ name
Zara around the world.
These are the real forms Zara takes in other languages, which often make excellent nicknames in their own right.
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Zahra
Arabic
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Zahrah
Urdu
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Zahara
Hebrew
Famous people called Zara.
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Zara Tindall
British equestrian and Olympic silver medallist
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Zara Larsson
Swedish pop singer
Questions about the name Zara
What does Zara mean? +
Most likely blossom or flower, through the Arabic zahrah. Radiance and princess are also offered, the second borrowed from Sarah on the assumption the two are related. Given the tangled history, no single meaning can honestly be stated with confidence.
Is Zara an Arabic name? +
Partly. Arabic zahrah is a real word and a real name, and Zahra is used across the Muslim world. But many modern British and American Zaras have no Arabic connection at all, having arrived via the royal family, the retailer or simply the sound.
Zara or Zahra? +
Zahra is the Arabic name proper, with the h pronounced and the sense of radiant or blossoming. Zara is the anglicised shape and is far more common in Western records. Some families register Zahra and use Zara socially, which blurs the two further.
Does the clothing brand matter? +
It has not stopped anybody. The chain took the name in 1975 and went global through the 1990s and 2000s, exactly as the name was climbing, so the association is now unavoidable. Parents tend to note it and then carry on regardless.