Gujarati Kinship Terms: A Family Relationship Guide
Gujarati is spoken by around 55 million people, mainly in Gujarat, and like most Indian languages it names relatives far more precisely than English does. Where English says “uncle”, Gujarati usually wants to know which uncle. Here are the everyday terms, written in the Gujarati script with their English meanings.
How Gujarati kinship works
Gujarati belongs to the Indo-Aryan kinship system. Unlike the Dravidian languages of the south, it does not sort cousins into cross and parallel: all of your cousins are cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters. What Gujarati marks instead is which side of the family a relative comes from — your father's father and your mother's father get different words — and, on the father's side, whether an uncle is older or younger than your father. Side and seniority carry the weight that cross and parallel carry in the south.
Parents and grandparents
- Father: પપ્પા
- Mother: મમ્મી
- Father's father: દાદા
- Mother's father: નાના
- Father's mother: દાદી
- Mother's mother: નાની
Build your family tree — free
Kinidhi's tree maker works out the correct Gujarati term for every relative as you add them — elder or younger, paternal or maternal, all of it. No sign-up, nothing leaves your device, and you can download the finished tree as an image.
Open the free tree maker →Father's brothers and sisters
- Father's elder brother: મોટા બાપા
- Father's younger brother: કાકા
- Elder uncle's wife: મોટી બા
- Younger uncle's wife: કાકી
- Father's sister: ફોઈ
- Her husband: ફુવા
Mother's brothers and sisters
- Mother's brother: મામા
- His wife: મામી
- Mother's elder sister: માસી
- Mother's younger sister: માસી
- Mother's sister's husband: માસા
Brothers and sisters
- Elder brother: મોટા ભાઈ
- Younger brother: નાનો ભાઈ
- Elder sister: મોટી બહેન
- Younger sister: નાની બહેન
Seniority is marked in the word itself: an elder brother and a younger brother are simply different words, so age is never ambiguous the way it is with the English “brother”.
Children and grandchildren
- Son: દીકરો
- Daughter: દીકરી
- Grandson: પૌત્ર
- Granddaughter: પૌત્રી
In-laws and marriage
- Husband: પતિ
- Wife: પત્ની
- Father-in-law: સસરા
- Mother-in-law: સાસુ
- Brother's wife: ભાભી
- Sister's husband: બનેવી
- Son's wife: વહુ
- Daughter's husband: જમાઈ
Build your family tree — free
Kinidhi's tree maker works out the correct Gujarati term for every relative as you add them — elder or younger, paternal or maternal, all of it. No sign-up, nothing leaves your device, and you can download the finished tree as an image.
Open the free tree maker →A note on regional variation
These are the common, widely understood forms. Gujarati kinship words vary by region, community and family, and many households use affectionate local variants that will not appear here — all of them equally correct. If your family says it differently, your family is right. We would genuinely like to hear about it: tell us and we will fold corrections into both this guide and the app.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between દાદા and નાના in Gujarati?
દાદા is your father's father and નાના is your mother's father. Gujarati keeps the two sides of the family lexically separate, so the word itself tells you which side a grandparent belongs to — something English needs an extra word to do.
Does Gujarati distinguish cross and parallel cousins?
No. Unlike the Dravidian languages of south India, Gujarati treats all cousins alike — as cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters. What it marks instead is the side of the family, and on the father's side whether an uncle is older or younger than your father.