Kamaria

Actually, Kamaria does have to do with the moon and is of Swahili origin, although the actual meaning is "moonlight," not moon. Many Arabic words are taken and then transformed to form a new word in Kiswahili. The word "Swahili" itself originates from the Arabic word "sahil." Anyway, you can't expect a dictionary to know all the words of a language, though it is true that kamari is a game of chance.

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That being said, I've never actually met someone with this name before. It's a nice name, although one of those names where, if the person doesn't know anything about Swahili and the way the words are pronounced, would be pronounced many different ways.

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Swahili is my native tongue, by the way.

The Kamusi Project ( http://www.yale.edu/swahili/ ) seems to disagree with the statement that this name is Swahili in origin. The database claims "moon" is "mwezi", and the closest thing to "kamaria" in the database is a game of chance called "kamari". A credible source for the claim that "kamaria" means anything along the lines of "moon" would be appreciated. [noted -ed]