Zara
[ˈzɑːr.ə]Meaning
an English name, perhaps from Arabic zahra (flower) or a variant of Sarah
Background Story
The name was used by William Congreve for a captive North African queen in his tragedy The Mourning Bride (1697), and he may have based it on the Arabic name Zahra. In 1736 Aaron Hill used it to translate Zaïre in his adaptation of Voltaire's play. In England it was popularized when Princess Anne gave it to her daughter in 1981. In Macedonian it is a diminutive of Zaharina.
Variations
Zahra, Zaria
Related Names
Zarina
From Persian zarīn, "golden"
Adra
Recorded as a given name in astronomy and in Arabic, as a feminine and masculine name
Arka
Recorded as a given name in Armenian, Croatian and Hinduism
Devi
Sanskrit word for "goddess"; the masculine form is Deva
Dira
Recorded as a given name in Indonesian
Gwen
From Welsh gwen, feminine of gwyn, "white, blessed"
Soraya
Persian form of the Arabic name Thurayya, from a word meaning 'brilliant gem' or 'Pleiades'
Tala
A given name with several unrelated meanings, including gold in Persian and bright star in Tagalog