Search by letter:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U W Y Z

In this page you will find a list of Ethiopian names for boys and girls. I made the list from different sources and I will be adding names week by week until completing the whole alphabet. The are listed in alphabetical order according to the Latin version of the names.
If you have any suggestion or correction, please let me know.

The system of personal Ethiopian names (Amhara and Tigrean) is different from the one in the west. The woman doesn’t take the name of the husband and besides there are no surnames but each person has his own name followed by the first name of the father. For example if someone’s name is Abebe Menelik, that could be interpreted as Abebe the son of Menelik. If Abebe Menelik marries Berhane Meseret, their children will have as a second name Abebe, for example Kebede Abebe for a boy or Hanna Abebe for a girl.
Many names contain two elements, for example Gebre Mikael and most of them have a religious origin. Besides that most of the Christian Amhara names have some meaning or in the Christian tradition or in the Muslim tradition. We should also take into account, that many times the full meaning of given name is the result of the combination of the two names given to a child.
Sometimes is difficult to recognize a name in a written text simply because the Amharic characters don’t have capital letters and the names don’t stand out. When Ethiopian names are transcribed in Latin latetters, not always the same system is used so that’s why is difficult to know the exact pronunciation and the names have small variations according to the transliteration.

Here is a list of books about African names:

Amharic And Ethiopic Onomastics: A Classic Ethiopian Legacy, Concept, And Ingenuity (Studies in Onomastics) by Elias Yemane	Muslim - Hebrew & Ethiopian Christian Names for Children (Volume one) by Faheem Judah-El
Hebrew Names for Children (Volume two) by Faheem Judah-El	From Adjoa to Zahara: More Than 1000 African Names to Affirm Your Cultural Pride by Julia Stewart
Traditional African Names by Jonathan Musere	Baby Names: Real Names with Real Meanings for African American Children by Tyra Mason
African Names: Names from the African Continent for Children and Adults by Julia Stewart	Dictionary of African Names Vol.1: Meanings, Pronunciations and Origin by Bunmi Adebayo
1001 African Names: First and Last Names from the African Continent by Julia Stewart	Proud Heritage: 11001 Names for Your African-American Baby by Elza Dinwiddie-boyd
African Names by Samaki	African-American Baby Name Book by Teresa Norman

AliciA