Somali has two different words for auntie, depending on which side of the family she’s on: habaryar (mother’s sister) and eeddo (father’s sister).
Just like with uncles, Somali doesn’t have one single word for “auntie” — it depends on whether she’s your mother’s sister or your father’s sister.
The two words
Habaryar — your mother’s sister (maternal aunt)
Eeddo — your father’s sister (paternal aunt), also sometimes written eedo
Does Eedo mean aunt or uncle?
Eeddo also spelled eedo means paternal aunt — specifically your father’s sister. It does not mean uncle. If you’ve seen it listed alongside uncle somewhere, that’s likely just a mix-up in translation, or the two words appearing near each other in a family vocabulary list rather than eedo itself carrying both meanings. For the maternal side, the word for aunt is habaryar instead.
So if someone asks “how do you say auntie in Somali,” the honest answer is: it depends which auntie. There isn’t one catch-all word the way there is in English.
Why Somali makes this distinction
This maternal/paternal split runs through most Somali family vocabulary, not just aunts — uncles and cousins follow the same pattern. It reflects how important lineage and extended family are in Somali culture: knowing which side of the family someone belongs to is built directly into the word itself.
Related family words
It’s worth learning the matching pair of words for uncles at the same time:
Abti — maternal uncle (mother’s brother)
Adeer — paternal uncle (father’s brother)
For the full picture of Somali family and kinship terms — including cousins, grandparents, and how the wider system works — see the complete family words guide at https://ashaalinoor.com/what-do-you-call-your-relations-in-somali