According to Georgy Klimov, in Mingrelian the term Odishi breaks down as Od-ish-i, where od- goes back to Proto-Kartvelian *ad- (yellow azalea) and -ish- is a topoformative element.

The early-18th-century Georgian scholar Prince Vakhushti, who included a detailed geographical account of the region in his Description of the Kingdom of Georgia, suggested a folk etymology of Odishi as meaning "once [odeshi] this land was ours.

Odishi first appears in the Georgian Chronicles under the reign of Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1213) as a fief ruled by the eristavi ("duke") of the dynasty with gentilitial titles of Bediani and Dadiani, derived from the respective localities.

[6][7][8] The Georgian equivalent of Mingrelia, Samegrelo, although referenced in much earlier records, did not enter the common usage until after the imposition of the Imperial Russian hegemony in 1804.

[1] The Mingrelian signatory to the 1804 treaty with Russia, Prince Grigol Dadiani, referred to himself as the "lawful Lord of Odishi, Lechkhumi, Svaneti, Abkhazia, and all the lands anciently belonging to the ancestors of mine.