Aunt and Uncle in Farsi: 4 Words, One for Each Side

Short answer: Farsi has no single word for aunt or uncle. Your father's brother is amu (عمو), your mother's brother is dâyi (دایی), your father's sister is amme (عمه) and your mother's sister is khâle (خاله). Cousins are built from these four: pesar-amu is the son of your amu.

English asks one question about an aunt: is she related to me? Farsi asks two. Which parent is she attached to, and is she a blood relative or did she marry in? Answer both and you have the word. Get either wrong and you've told the room you don't know the family.

This post is only about that one corner of the family tree: aunts, uncles, the people they married and the cousins they produced. For parents, grandparents, in-laws and the full list of relatives, the long version is my Persian family vocabulary guide.

The four core words

Two questions, four answers. Learn this grid and the rest of the post builds itself.

A trick that works for a lot of learners: the two words for the father's side both start with the same sound, am-. Amu and amme. Mother's side, you get the two that don't match each other: dâyi and khâle.

These words don't change between written and spoken Farsi. Amme is amme in a letter and amme across the kitchen. That makes them easier than mâdar and pedar, which most people swap for mâmân and bâbâ at home.

The people who married in

Here is where English really gives up. Your aunt's husband is "uncle" in English. In Farsi he is the husband of a specific aunt, and the word says which one.

The pattern is zan (wife) or shohar (husband) plus the blood relative's title. So you never need a new root, you just name the person through the relative they married.

Eight words for cousin

Cousins use the same trick in the other direction. Take pesar (son) or dokhtar (daughter) and add the parent's title. The word tells you the cousin's gender and exactly which aunt or uncle is their parent.

You'll also hear these with a small linking -e in the middle, dokhtar-e khâle, the way the glossary entry for khâle writes it. Both are normal. In fast speech the compound usually wins.

So is there a plain word for "cousin"? Not one people use in conversation. If you say "my cousin" in Farsi, the next question is always "which one?", and the answer is one of these eight.

Three sentences you can copy

All three come from our glossary entries, so you can tap through and hear how each word behaves.

• عموی من معلم است (Amu-ye man mo'allem ast.) "My uncle is a teacher." This is the written register; in speech it becomes shorter, but the word amu doesn't move.
• دایی من در شیراز زندگی می‌کند (Dâyi-ye man dar Shirâz zendegi mikonad.) "My maternal uncle lives in Shiraz."
• پسرعموم تو فرانسه زندگی می‌کنه (Pesar-amum tu Farânse zendegi mikone.) "My cousin (my father's brother's son) lives in France." Notice the ending: after a vowel, "my" is just -m, so pesar-amu + m = pesar-amum.

Using the titles as names

Inside the family you don't call your aunt by her first name alone. You put the title in front, the way English speakers say "Aunt Mary". The glossary gives amme Faride and khâle Mehri as examples, and amu Hossein for an uncle.

To make it warmer, add jân (dear) after the title. دایی becomes dâyi jân, "dear uncle". In Tehran-style speech jân often comes out as jun, so khâle jun is what you'll hear on the phone.

One thing surprises learners. Children call almost any kind older woman khâle: a neighbour, a teacher, their mum's friend. It is a warm, respectful way to address someone who isn't family at all. Amu gets used the same way for older men. If a child in Iran calls you amu, nobody thinks you're related.

Which word do I use for...?

A quick lookup table, because this is the question people actually type.

Why it matters at a family dinner

If you are dating or married into an Iranian family, these eight titles are the first thing to get right. Calling your partner's dâyi "amu" isn't a disaster, everyone will correct you kindly, but it shows you haven't worked out who's who yet. The glossary note on amme puts it plainly: using the wrong term can feel cold.

The easiest way in is to ask. "Is this your mum's sister or your dad's?" is a completely normal question, and once you know, you know the word. For the conversation that follows, see meeting your partner's Iranian family in Farsi and the wider فامیل (fâmil), the extended family that turns up at every gathering. My post on why the family is part of the relationship covers what happens after the names are sorted.

Get it wrong and the worst that happens is a warm laugh and a story they’ll tell for years. Get it right — refuse the tea twice, accept on the third — and you’ll watch a face open up. You didn’t just speak Persian. You played the game.