Arabic name

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The stylized signature of Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire. Affected by Arabic culture, Ottoman rulers had stylized their names in the Arabic way, as depicted in this signature.

Old Arabic names are based on a very sophisticated naming system: most Arabs do not simply have first/middle/last names, but a full chain of names. This system is in use throughout the Arab world. Due to the importance of the Arabic language in Islam, a large majority of the world's Muslims use Arabic first names (ism), but it is not common outside the Arab world to employ the full naming conventions described below.

1 Structure of the Arab name
- 1.1 Ism
- 1.2 Kunya
- 1.3 Nasab
- 1.4 Laqab
- 1.5 Nisba
2 Example
3 Westernization of Arab naming practices and names
4 Mistakes made by Westerners and other non-Arabs
5 Modern and regional variations
6 Arab family naming convention
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Structure of the Arab name

[edit] Ism

The main name of an Arab person is the ism, his or her personal name (e.g. "Karim" or "Fatima"). Most Arabic names are originally Arabic words with a meaning, usually signalling the good character of the person. Indeed, 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. Abdul, a common name that means "God's Servant" or "God's Slave".

Muslim practices

A very common form for Muslim Arab names is the combination of `abd followed by another word: `abd X means "servant of X" or "slave of X", where X is a word describing Allah (God), often one of the Muslim 99 Names of God. The result is a name such as Abdullah ("Submissive to the God") or Abdurrashid ("Submissive to the Righteous One"). "Abdul" used by itself means "slave of the" and is not a complete Arabic name.

Christian practices

Most Christian Arabs have names that are indistinguishable from those of their Muslim neighbors, but there are also many who retain names of Greek, Armenian, or Assyrian origin. Adoption of European names, especially French ones, has been a centuries-long convention for Arab Christians — especially but not only in the Levant. Thus, George Habash, Charles Helou, Camille Chamoun, etc.

[edit] Kunya

Often, a kunya referring to the person's first-born son is used as a substitute for the ism: for example, "Abu Karim" for "Father of Karim". The female variant is "Umm", thus "Umm Karim". The kunya precedes the ism when not replacing it.

[edit] Nasab

The nasab is a patronymic or series of patronymics. It indicates the person's heritage by the word ibn (sometimes bin) which means "son". Thus 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.

[edit] Laqab

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). Haroun is the Arabic form for Aaron, and "al-Rashid" means "the righteous" or "the rightly-guided".

[edit] Nisba

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-mişrī (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.

[edit] Example

Abu Karim Muhammad al-Jamil ibn Nidal ibn Abdulaziz al-Filastini

abū karīm muhammadu-l-jamīl ibn nidāl ibn 'abdi-'azīzi-l-filastīnī

This means, in translation:

"Father-of-Karim, Muhammad, the beautiful, son of Nidal, son of Abdulaziz, the Palestinian"

(karim means generous, muhammad means praised, jamīl means beautiful; azīz means Magnificient, and it is one of the 99 names of God.)

Abu Karim 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-Filastini" is his family nisba. Normally, this person would simply be referred to as "Muhammad" or "Abu Karim", but to signify respect or to specify which Mohammad we are speaking about (namely, the beautiful one from Palestine), the name could be lengthened as above, to the extent necessary or desired.

[edit] Westernization of Arab naming practices and names

It must be noted that 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 adopt to Western conventions for practical purposes when travelling or when residing in Western countries, constructing a first name/surname 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.

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, Abd al-Rahman, or Abd ar-Rahman), as there is no single accepted system. A single individual may even try out several different ways of transliterating his or her name, producing even greater inconsistency.

[edit] Mistakes made by Westerners and other non-Arabs

It is important to note that, while such names may be written "Abdul (something)", "Abdul" means "servant of the" and is not, by itself, a name. Thus, 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 his name, but a name of God.

Another mistake sometimes happens with names including the Arabic word `alā' علاء = "nobility". (Here, ` represents the ayin sound and '' represents the glottal stop.) 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, an internet search will find many instances of the Muslim man's name `Alā'-ed-dīn = "the nobility of the religion" misspelt as Allah-ed-din. (This name is known to Western culture through Aladdin.)

Another mistake can result from differences between Arabic grammar and the grammar of some other languages. Arabic forms noun compounds in the opposite order from Iranian languages. For example, during the recent war in Afghanistan, 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. But by the rules of Iranian and most Indian languages this name means "the 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.

Another mistake can result from Europeans not knowing that "Allāh" often becomes "Ullāh" when it is the second part of an Arabic compound, as in Habīb Ullāh = "friend of God"; here a European may in error report the man's name as 'forename "Habib", surname "Ullah"'.

Problems may be presented by transliteration. 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 prefered transliteration among scholars. Similarly, to refer to the late President Nasser of Egypt as "Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir" would be technically correct, but likely to produce confusion.

[edit] Modern and regional variations

While the ibn/bin prefix is still commonly used in names, its use is declining; in some places, this prefix is only used in government interactions, and in other places it is dropped altogether. In Mauritania its usage is still common, but ever since the colonial era many people have preferred the dialectal form ould (ولد, pronounced [wulː]).
Syria retains a heavy Turkish influence, which is reflected in commonly found names of Turkish and Kurdish origin; c.f. Adib al-Shishakli.
Maghribi names are quite distinctive due to heavy Berber (Tamazigh) and French influences.
In certain Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, male Muslims' names often begin with Mohammed or Muhammed (often abbreviated to Mohd.) or Hajji, continued by the given name, followed by the prefix "bin", then his father's name.
Many Jews of Temani, Mizrahi and Arabicized Sephardi extraction often maintain Arab surnames and adopt Arab names common to Arab Jews, even in the West. C.f. Paula Abdul and Loolwa Khazzoom.
In Western China, officials will, when spelling a native name in Chinese characters, sometimes represent "Muhammad" by the Chinese character 馬/马 mǎ.^{[citation needed]}
Sometimes Muslim or otherwise Arabic names are used by people who are not Muslims or even have origins in the Middle East. Examples are: Ayesha, Fatima (see each name for information as to why), and the USA army commander Omar Bradley.

[edit] Arab family naming convention

In Arabic culture a person's ancestry and his/her family name are very important.

Assume a man has the name of "Saleh bin Tariq bin Khalid Al-Fulani"

"Saleh" is his personal name, and is the name that his family and friends would call him by. "Bin" translates as "son of", so "Tariq" is Saleh's father's name. "Bin Khaled" means that Tariq was the son of Khalid, making Khalid the grandfather of Saleh. "Al-Fulani" would be Saleh's family name

So "Saleh bin Tariq bin Khalid Al-Fulani" translates as "Saleh, son of Tariq, son of Khaled; of the family Al-Fulani."

Modern naming convention may drop the word "bin" as it is already implied, so Saleh's full name would be "Saleh Tariq Khalid Al-Fulani"

If Saleh was married his wife would keep her maiden name. His sons and daughters will take Saleh's family name, so his son Mohammed would be called "Mohammed bin Saleh bin Tariq Al-Fulani".