Varvara

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Barbara in US United States, PL Poland, GB United Kingdom and 20 more, Варвара in RU Russia, UA Ukraine, KZ Kazakhstan and 1 more, Bárbara in BR Brazil, FR France and ברברה in HU Hungary.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 24 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Varvara is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Hungarian given name2.5K records spelled Varvara10 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Hungary, Slovenia, United States, Finland

  Languages: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian

  Also written Barbara, Bárbara, Bàrbara, Barbarà

• French given name1.6K records spelled Varvara4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, Spain, Russia, Belgium

  Languages: French, Catalan

  Also written Varvàra, Varvară

• Norwegian Bokmål given name1.0K records spelled Varvara6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Norway, Denmark, Russia, United States

  Languages: Norwegian Bokmål, Danish, Swedish

  Also written varvarÃ

• Latvian given name728 records spelled Varvara3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Latvia, Lithuania, Russia

  Languages: Latvian, Lithuanian

  Also written Varvāra

• Kazakh given name656 records spelled Varvara12 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Kazakhstan, Russia, Türkiye, Kyrgyzstan

  Languages: Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz

  Also written Варвара

• a separate given name341 records spelled Varvara3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Russia, Ukraine

  Also written Varvaṙa, Varvară

• Portuguese given name278 records spelled Varvara4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Russia, Brazil, United States, Portugal

  Also written Varvarà, varvarÃ, Vârvara

26 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Varvara is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In Italian, forma feminina de Varvaro

  as a name·Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

• In Italian, Variante di Barbaro

  as a name·Dizionario dei cognomi italiani

• La extranjera

  as a name·25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado

• Russian form of BARBARA . Pet form: Varya .

  as a word

• In English, A transliteration of the Belarusian, Macedonian, Russian, or Ukrainian female given name Варва́ра (Varvára).

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Saint Barbarab. 273TRnot in their usual nameearly Christian saint and martyr, from Nicomedia (273-306)
• Varvara Alekseevna Morozovab. 1848RURussian industrialist and philanthropist (1848–1917)
• Varvara Massalitinovab. 1878RURussian and Soviet actress (1878–1945)
• Barbarab. 1880RUnot in their usual nameRussian Orthodox saint
• Varvara Yakovlevab. 1885RURussian bolshevik politician (1885–1941)
• Barbara Karinskab. 1886USnot in their usual nameUkrainian-born US costumer
• Varvara Stepanovab. 1894RURussian artist (1894-1958)
• Varvara Lepchenkob. 1986UZUkrainian-American tennis player
• Varvara Flinkb. 1996RURussian tennis player
• Varvara Grachevab. 2000RURussian and French tennis player

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 164 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Varvara?

We estimate roughly 1.7 million people bear Varvara (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.

In which country does Varvara have the most bearers?

We estimate about 942 thousand people bear Varvara in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled barbara.

Where is Varvara most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Varvara is densest in Poland — about 1 in 82 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.

How common is Varvara compared with other names?

In the United States, Varvara is the 36th most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.

Is Varvara a male or female name?

Varvara is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Varvara mean?

Recorded meaning: "foreignor." Russianization of Barbara.