The problem is in that the Croatian self-ethnonym - Hrvati - does not help to understand where the vowel used to be: hOrvati or hrOvati. Both variants exist (Horvatia being, for example, a Ukrainian/Russian equivalent).
But we'll go for Hrovati, since that's the name the nation is mentioned under in Primary Chronicle (Повесть временних лет): ХРОВАТЕ.
The Laz toponymic AT-suffix is likely to mean 'land of hrova'. The word 'hrova' in Kartvelian means 'herd of wolves' (Rayfield). Thus, Hrovati literally means 'land of wolves' herds'.
Croatia is known as hosting wolves population.
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