Marathi Kinship Terms: A Family Relationship Guide
Marathi is spoken by around 83 million people, mainly in Maharashtra, and like most Indian languages it names relatives far more precisely than English does. Where English says “uncle”, Marathi usually wants to know which uncle. Here are the everyday terms, written in the Devanagari script with their English meanings.
How Marathi kinship works
Marathi 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. It also differs from Hindi in one respect worth knowing: where Hindi splits the grandfathers into दादा and नाना, Marathi uses the same word for both sides. You may hear the Hindi pair in some families, but it is a borrowing rather than the Marathi pattern. What Marathi does mark is seniority — on the father's side, whether an uncle is older or younger than your father.
Parents and grandparents
- Father: बाबा
- Mother: आई
- Grandfather (either side): आजोबा
- Grandmother (either side): आजी
Build your family tree — free
Kinidhi's tree maker works out the correct Marathi 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: काका
- Father's younger brother: काका
- Father's brother's wife: काकू
- Father's sister: आत्या
- Her husband: आतोबा
Mother's brothers and sisters
- Mother's brother: मामा
- His wife: मामी
- Mother's elder sister: मावशी
- Mother's younger sister: मावशी
- Mother's sister's husband: मावसा
Brothers and sisters
- Elder brother: दादा
- Younger brother: भाऊ
- Elder sister: ताई
- Younger sister: बहीण
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: मुलगा
- Daughter: मुलगी
- Grandson: नातू
- Granddaughter: नात
In-laws and marriage
- Husband: नवरा
- Wife: बायको
- Father-in-law: सासरा
- Mother-in-law: सासू
- Brother's wife: वहिनी
- Sister's husband: दाजी
- Son's wife: सून
- Daughter's husband: जावई
Build your family tree — free
Kinidhi's tree maker works out the correct Marathi 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. Marathi 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 आजोबा and आजोबा in Marathi?
आजोबा is your father's father and आजोबा is your mother's father. Marathi 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 Marathi distinguish cross and parallel cousins?
No. Unlike the Dravidian languages of south India, Marathi 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.