Zura
One of the rarest names in Poland: just over sixty people carry it, split almost evenly between women and men. It's a short form of Zurab, with the sense of "shining" or "illustrious".
Zura Pronunciation
Zura is pronounced ZOO-rah (/ˈzura/).
What Zura means
Where Zura comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Zura is a short form of Zurab, and the diminutive did what diminutives do: it slipped loose and became a name in its own right. Zurab is a Georgian masculine name, well documented in Georgia, and Zura is how friends and family shorten it in daily speech. The origin here is filed simply as other, outside the usual Slavic, Latin, or Greek roots a Polish register expects.
The short meaning attached to it is illustrious, shining, in Polish jasność, światło. Read that as a later gloss, a sense people fastened to the name rather than a literal root. Zurab has been carried by real bearers, including figures in Georgian public and cultural life, so the name arrives with a history rather than a blank.
In Poland it stays rare. A teacher reading a class register may pause at Zura before the pronunciation settles.
That rarity is the point of interest. It reads as foreign, compact, easy to say once heard. Four letters, one bright meaning, and a parent form standing behind it: Zurab.
How many people are named Zura
1 in 627829 men in Poland is named Zura. 62 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #4686 among male names.