Birinji Gayakharaba was a village in the Iravan uezd of the former Iravan governorate, later in the former Ellar (Kotayk, Abovyan) district, and present-day Kotayk province. Another name for the village was “Sultanaghil”.

The village was inhabited by 119 Azerbaijanis in 1897, 106 in 1904, and 174 Azerbaijanis in 1914. The Azerbaijanis were attacked, massacred or expelled from the village by Armenian armed units in 1918. At present, the village is in ruins.

The toponym was coined by combining the word “gaya” meaning “a hill, a mountain, a cliff” in Azerbaijani and “kharaba” meaning “a devastated or ruined place”. The toponym denotes “a devastated village on a rock or a hill.”