Amari

1. Italian (Sicily): see Amaro.

2. Arabic: variant of Amar.

3. Japanese: ‘surplus’, usually written with characters used phonetically. It appears to be a shortening of amaribe ‘surplus doors’, a reference to the practice among census takers from ancient times up to the era of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867) of listing households in groups of fifty; any households exceeding this number or a multiple of it were referred to as ‘surplus’. The surname is found chiefly in northeastern Japan.

GIVEN NAMES: Italian 16%. Angelo (2), Marcello (2), Vito (2), Carmel, Franco, Giulio, Nicolo, Salvatore, Vita.

See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.