Arabic Boy Name
Arabic Boy Name
Old Arabic names are based on a long naming system; most Arabs do not simply have given/middle/family names, but a full chain of names. This system is in use throughout the Arab world. Because of the importance of the Arabic language in Islam, a large majority of the world's Muslims use Arabic names ( ism ), but it is not common outside the Arab world to employ the full naming conventions described below.
Structure of the Arabic name
Ism (Arabic: اسم)
The main name of an Arab person is the ism , his or her personal name (e.g. "Kareem" or "Fatima"). Most Arabic names are originally Arabic words with a meaning, usually signalling the good character of the person. Karīm means "generous", maħmūd means "praiseworthy", and both words are employed as adjectives and nouns in regular language. Arab newspapers sometimes try to avoid confusion by placing names in brackets or between quotation marks. Generally, context and grammar will indicate how the word is being used, but foreign students of Arabic may initially have trouble with this.
- Muslim practices
- Christian practices
Kunya كنية
Often, a kunyah referring to the person's first-born son is used as a substitute for the ism : for example, أبو كريم "Abu Karim" for "father of Karim", and أم كريم "Umm Karim", "mother of Karim". It can refer to the person's first-born son. The kunya precedes the ism when not replacing it. (Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, is widely known within the Arab world by his kunya , "Abu-Mazen".)
Nasab نسب
The nasab is a patronymic or series of patronymics. It indicates the person's heritage by the word ابن ibn (sometimes bin ) which means "son", and bint , "daughter". Thus ابن خلدون Ibn Khaldun means "son of Khaldun" (Khaldun is the father's ism , or proper name). Several nasab can follow in a chain, to trace a person's ancestry backwards in time. This was important in the tribally based society of the ancient Arabs, both for purposes of identification and for social and political interaction. In modern Arabic, it's very common for people to omit the ibn or bint in normal conversation, just using the names themselves.
Laqab لقب
The laqab is intended as a description of the person. So, for example, in the name of the famous Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Rashid (of A Thousand and One Nights fame), Haa'roon is the Arabic form for Aaron, and "al-Rashid" means "the righteous" or "the rightly-guided".
Nisba نسبة
The nisba describes a person's occupation, geographic home area, or descent (tribe, family, etc). It will follow a family through several generations, and it is for example common to find people with the name al-miṣrī (the Egyptian, or rather "of Egypt") in many places in the Middle East, despite the fact that their families may have resided outside Egypt for several generations. The nisba , among the components of the Arabic name, perhaps most closely resembles the Western surname.
Example
This means, in translation:
Abu Kareem is a kunya , Muhammad is the person's proper name ( ism ), al-Jamil is a laqab , Nidal is his father (a nasab ), Abdulaziz his grandfather (second-generation nasab ) and "al-Filistini" is his family nisba . Normally, this person would simply be referred to as "Muhammad" or "Abu Kareem", but to signify respect or to specify which Mohammad we are speaking about (namely, the beautiful son of Nidal and grandson of Abdulaziz), the name could be lengthened as above, to the extent necessary or desired.
Westernization of Arabic naming practices and names
Many Arabic countries have now adopted a Westernized way of naming. This is the case for example in Lebanon and Maghreb countries where French conventions are followed, and it is rapidly gaining ground elsewhere.
Also, many Arabs adapt to Western conventions for practical purposes when travelling or when residing in Western countries, constructing a given name/family name model out of their full Arab name, to fit Western expectations and/or visa applications or other official forms and documents. The reverse side to this is the surprise of many Westerners when asked to supply their first name, second name, father's name and family name in some Arab visa applications. Similarly, if an Arab woman marries a Westerner and applies for a passport, her new 'official' name becomes, for example, Maryam David William Smith because of the patronymic naming convention.
The Westernization of an Arab name may require transliteration. Often, one name may be transliterated in several different ways (Abdul Rahman, Abdoul Rahman, Abdur Rahman, Abdurahman, Abd al-Rahman, or Abd ar-Rahman), as there is no single accepted system. A single individual may try out several ways of transliterating his or her name, producing even greater inconsistency. This has resulted in confusion on the part of governments, security agencies, airlines, and other: for example, especially since 9/11, persons with names written similarly to those of suspected terrorists have been detained.
Common mistakes
Westerners often make these mistakes:
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Separating "the X of Y" word combinations (see idafa):
- With "Abdul": Arabic names may be written "Abdul (something)", but "Abdul" means "servant of the" and is not, by itself, a name. Thus for example, to address Abdul Rahman bin Omar al-Ahmad by his given name, one must say "Abdul Rahman", not merely "Abdul". If he introduces himself as "Abdul Rahman" (which means "the servant of the Compassionate One"), one must not say "Mr. Rahman", (as "Rahman" is not a family name but part of his (theophoric) personal name), instead it would be Mr. Ahmad, being the family name).
- People not understanding Arabic sandhi in genitive constructions: Habību-llāh = "beloved of God"; here a person may in error report the man's name as 'forename "Habib", surname "Ullah"'. Likewise, people may confuse a name such as Jalālu-d-dīn ("The Majesty of the Religion") as being "Jalal Uddin", or "Mr. Uddin", when "Uddin" is not a surname, but the second half of a two-word name (the desinence -u of the construct state nominative, plus the article, appearing as -d- , plus the genitive dīn ). Although, to add to the confusion, some immigrants to Western countries have adopted Uddin as a surname, although it is grammatically incorrect outside the context of the associated "first name". Even Indian Muslims commit the same error. If a person's name is Abd-ul-Rahim (Servant of Merciful), his companions may call him as Mr Abdul (Servant of) erroneously as they are not aware that it is incorrect usage and that it sounds quite odd.
- Confusing "`alā'" with "Allah": Some Muslim names include the Arabic word `alā' علاء = "nobility". (Here, ` represents the ayin sound, the voiced pharyngeal fricative, and ' represents the hamza sound, the glottal stop, and L is spelled and pronounced once. In Allāh , L is spelled twice and pronounced separately.) In Arabic pronunciation, `alā and Allāh are clearly different. But Europeans, Iranians and Indians often cannot pronounce some Arabic sounds correctly, and tend to pronounce these two names the same. For example, the Muslim male name `Alā'-ad-dīn = "the nobility of the religion" is often misspelt as Allah-ad-din . (This name is known to English speakers as Aladdin.) Because these two words are different, there is really a given name of a male Arab "`Ala' Allah" ( Aliullah ), meaning "the nobility of God."
- Grammar errors: These can result from differences between Arabic grammar and the grammar of some other languages. Arabic forms noun compounds in the opposite order from Indo-Iranian languages. For example, during the war in Afghanistan in 2002, a BBC team found in Kabul an internal refugee whose name they stated as "Allah Muhammad". This may be a misspelling, as described in the previous paragraph; but if not: By the rules of Arabic grammar, this name means "the Allah who belongs to Muhammad", which is not acceptable as a man's name and ideally and logically wrong; but by the rules of Iranian and most Indian languages this name means "Muhammad who belongs to Allah", which is acceptable; the Arabic equivalent is "Muhammad Ullah". Most Afghans speak Iranian languages. Such mismatched and grammatically incorrect Arabic and Arabic-Persian compound names are not uncommon in Afghanistan, Iran, and Tajikistan.
- Transliteration of Arabic: The general rule is to follow the transliterated spelling adopted by the individual in question, if it exists, or else to follow one of the available systems. If someone has decided to spell his name "Mohammed", it is somewhat rude to refuse to accept this and to insist on "Muhammad," even if "Muhammad" is the preferred transliteration among scholars. Similarly, to refer to the late President Nasser of Egypt as "Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir" would be incorrect on two counts:
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