Entry № 3760 · Pali origin

Gotami Gotami — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ GOH-tah-mee /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Pali
Meaning
"Of the Gotama clan (the mustard seed parable)"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Ancient (Pali)

A name that means "of the gotama clan (the mustard seed parable)".

Gotami (गोतमी) is the feminine of Gotama. Kisa Gotami is the heroine of one of the most famous Buddhist parables — when her only son died, she begged the Buddha to restore him. He told her to gather mustard seeds from any house untouched by death. Finding none, she understood the universality of grief and became a nun, attaining enlightenment.

Mahapajapati Gotami was the Buddha's stepmother and aunt — the first Buddhist nun, founder of the bhikkhunī sangha.

Of the Gotama clan. The mustard seed parable; first Buddhist nun.

The name in its native script.

गोतमी
Transliteration
Gotamī
Pronunciation
/ ˈɡoʊ.tə.mi /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Gotami stands.

Gotami does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Gotamis before her.

Real people
Mahapajapati Gotami
First Buddhist nun, Buddha's stepmother.
Kisa Gotami
Mustard seed parable nun.
In fiction
Gotami
Featured in the Therigatha.

Names connected to Gotami.

The number behind Gotami.

2

The Peacemaker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Gotami reduce to 2, The Peacemaker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.