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World Cravat Day 18th October – the origin of the CRAVAT and of its universally known name is Croatia

Posted on October 19, 2018September 7, 2026 by Nenad N. Bach and Darko Žubrinić

Italian – Cravatta, Spanish – Corbata, Filipino – Korbata, Portuguese – Gravata, Croatian – Kravata, Irish – Carabhat, Basque – Gorbata, English – Cravat

Ivan Gundulic (1589-1638) with his cravat in 1622. Source: Acadmia Cravatica.

The earliest known usage of cravat in history is by Ivan Gundulic (1589-1638), a famous Croatian poet from the City of Dubrovnik. Note that Gundulic died the year when the French emperor Louis XIV was born.

Croatian soldiers served in many European armies since the seventeenth century. So in the French army in the 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIII, there was a cavalry composed exclusively of the Croats, called Royal – Cravate, which existed in the period of 1664-1789. These soldiers gave the world something that is today unavoidable in fashion: the tie, called la cravate by the French and by the Germans die Krawatte – the expression was coined from the Croatian name, and mentioned for the first time in 1651. The name entered also

  • Italian – Cravatta
  • Spanish – Corbata
  • Filipino – Korbata
  • Portuguese – Gravata
  • Croatian – Kravata
  • Irish – Carabhat
  • Basque – Gorbata
  • English – Cravat
  • Welsh – Crafat
  • Swedish – Kravatt
  • Finnish – Kravatti
  • Flemish – Krawaat
  • Danish – Kravata
  • Dutch – Kravata
  • Norwegian – Krawatt
  • Swedish – Krawatt
  • Estonian – Kravata
  • Greek – Gravata
  • Polish – Krawat
  • Ukrainian – Kravatka
  • Czech – Kravata
  • Slovakian – Kravata
  • Slovenian – Kravata
  • Albanian – Kravata
  • Romanian – Cravata
  • Serbian – Kravata
  • Turkish – Kravat
  • Afrikaans – Krawat
  • Galician – Gravat
  • Malay – Cravat
  • Vietnamese – Cravat

and many other. So when you wear a tie, remember its Croatian origin.

Many variants of the Croatian name can be found in old documents (for more information see eg. [Klaic, Hrvati i Hrvatska]):

Hrvat, Horvat, Harvat, Chorvat, Charvat,
Crovat, Cravat (-> cravate), Crobat, Corbat, Krabat,
Charwath, Crawat, Krawat, Churbate, Grawat,
Charwaten, Corbetha, Curewate, Corwate,
Chrowat, Crowat, etc.

In Italy one can encounter the second names of Cravati, Cravatti, Cravetto, Cravedi, Craviotto, Croattimi, Croatto, obviously all of them derived from the Croatian name. You can easily check this in Italian phone books.
More information at www.croatianhistory.net

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Related Links
  • http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/cravate.html
  • http://academia-cravatica.hr/en/
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