Circassian boy names and their meanings

Updated September 29, 2026 · 6 min read

Looking for a Circassian boy name that means something? Here are 33 traditional Adyghe and Kabardian names for boys, from Shumaf, “happy horseman”, to Sosruko, the hero of the Nart sagas. Every meaning comes from one of two academic name dictionaries: Nashi imena (Maykop, 1999) and the Consolidated Dictionary of Personal Names of the Peoples of the North Caucasus (Moscow, 2012).

The 2012 dictionary notes that men’s names lean towards courage, with words for thunder, the sword and metal, while women’s names are mostly about beauty. It also lists the customs behind the names: respect for elders and rank, the horse and the rider, and the old habit of letting a visiting guest name a newborn.

How Circassian boy names are built

Like the girls’ names, many Circassian names for boys are two words joined into one. These pieces turn up most often:

• шыу, “rider”: Шыумаф (happy horseman), Шыупащ (leader of the horsemen), ЗекIошыу (travelling horseman).
• пщы, “prince”: Пщымаф (happy prince), Дзэпщ (prince of the army), Пщыкъан (the prince’s foster son).
• гъукI, “iron, blacksmith”: ГъучIыпс (iron soul), ГъукIэшъау (son of the blacksmith).
• къо or шъао, “son”: Саусырыкъу (son of the stone), Тхьаишъау (son of God), Темырыкъу (son of Temir).

Many boys’ names are wishes. The most famous is Теуцожь, Teuchezh, “stand firm”, a wish that the child gets strongly to his feet; Афэмгъот means “the longed-for child”. The 2012 dictionary also describes protective names built on хьэ, “dog”, which were believed to keep harm away from a child.

33 Circassian boy names and their meanings

Showing 33 names

The Cyrillic spelling is the Adyghe form from the 1999 dictionary, followed by the Russian form used in documents. The Latin spelling is a transliteration of that Russian form.

Boy names from the Nart sagas

Sosruko (Саусырыкъу; Kabardian Сосрыкъуэ) is one of the central heroes of the Nart sagas, the epic tales of the North Caucasus: the smallest of the Narts, clever and often a trickster, who in Circassian tradition stole fire from a giant. Both name dictionaries explain the name as “son of the stone”.

Tlepsh (Лъэпшъ) is the blacksmith of the Narts, which makes the name a natural partner to the iron names above. The 1999 dictionary also lists Orzamez, Totresh and Nart itself as names taken from the epic.

The most common Circassian men’s names

For the 1999 dictionary, its authors counted many of the names on Adygea’s 1995 voter lists, which covered people born in 1977 or earlier. The single most frequent men’s name in that count is a Circassian one: Teuchezh, “stand firm”, borne by 129 people across its spellings.

Counts are only given for some names and spellings, so read this as a snapshot of one republic a generation ago.

Popular names with other roots

Some of the names most people think of as Circassian came from neighbouring languages centuries ago. The 2012 dictionary traces them like this:

Two of them carry history. Inal was the forefather of the Kabardian princes, and Beslan may come from bey + Aslan: Aslanbiy was the forefather of the Besleney Kabardians. Qansuh al-Ghuri, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, bore the Circassian name Kanshao.

For girls, see Circassian girl names and meanings. The warrior names fit right in with the Circassian warrior tradition, and the horsemen with the Kabardian horse.

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Circassian boy names: frequently asked questions