Talk:Arabic name

Section on Arabic Christian Names
Doesn't seem to be good Arabic. Eg, Abdul Yasu is given as "servant of Jesus" but elsewhere in the article it's explained that Abu is "servant of" and Abdul is "servant of the." "Servant of the Jesus" doesn't seem correct, although Arabic grammar may be different here. Similarly, Yasu isn't Jesus: Isa is. Perhaps this section is written in some dialect like Egyptian or Lebanese Arabic? -LlywelynII (talk) 05:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC) Isa is the Muslim name for Jesus whereas Yasu' is the christian equivalent. As to Abdul it can mean servant or even slave.

Also the current edit says that Christian Arabs do not use the name Muhammad. This isn't true, I have met Christian Arabs named Muhammad before. I suggest that the sentence should be changed to say that Islamic names are rare among Christian Arabs, rather than saying they do not exist. DruidODurham (talk) 16:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC) I agree that that many Christians in Arab countries use Arabic names that may have islamic connotations like Mohammed or Ali. I think that there are probably two categories of names in Arabic (my concept) one is names that are widely used and are neutral in terms of religion, such as Nabil, and others such as above.


 * LlywelynII, Abu means "father of", and Abdul means "servant of". Ratibgreat (talk) 08:20, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking that the name "George" is actually Arabic (or at least Semitic) in origin. Certainly, St. George was born in the Levant and my understanding is that he has been much revered since pre-Islamic times, and the wikipedia entry on him suggests that he is highly regarded even among the Muslims in the Middle East as well. Can someone who has more authoritative knowledge on this matter provide some input on this? 71.226.118.10 (talk) 05:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC) St George is calle Mari Girgis by Coptic christians.

A Few changes
I've edited a few things in this article; most of my edits were slight changes to make the information more accurate. However, I think I need to explain my edits to the last section:
 * The dropping "bin" prefix issue is very true, but it is not only present in Iraq; actually I think it is more prsent in Iraq (despite Saddam Hussian's name) than in other places. It is just considered old form to use "bin" nowadays.
 * The "Abu" usage is not restricted to Palestians, and is in no way an indication to them. It just happens that people in groups like Hamas try to use aliases rather than real names, originally for their security. Other parts of the Arab world use this kind of aliases as much as Palestians, but in less official circumstances.


 * As an aside, bint was originally a British Forces slang word for a girl, which has now passed into general English usage. The word is not obscene, merely perhaps a little reproving, and quite charmingly old-fashioned.
 * Nuttyskin 06:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It might depend on where you are in the world but in my experience in the UK bint is definitely obscene. It may not be the worst thing you could call a woman but it's still insulting. Which is annoying because I came here to find the female equivalent of ibn for an MMO character I'm creating and now I have to choose between historical accuracy and risking getting banned for an offensive name. Danikat (talk) 10:14, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Help needed with spelling
Which one is the correct or preferred spelling in English: Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi or Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi? From this article, it seems the latter is better. I'll request to move the page if necessary. Cheers. --Edcolins 20:39, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Please reply on Talk:Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi, not here. The discussion is taking place there. --Edcolins 07:47, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Also look at Arabic naming conventions. -Fsotrain09 17:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You can spell it either way. You can spell it Hussayn Hanoon Alsaadi if you want, just so long as the name isn't usually spelt in Roman lettering. The capitalised definite article looks a bit old-fashioned; then again, Hanoun always looks too French colonial for my taste, but it's quite standard.
 * Nuttyskin 06:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

As with many names containing the letter 'ain, ع, it is sometimes useful to introduce a glottal catch which could be written as Al sa'adi.AbuZumara56 (talk) 19:49, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Kunya
A Kunya is the Arabic equivalent to a roman cognomen, not the father's name.

An Arabic name project
I'd like to start a project, and I'm not sure where, but I thought I'd bring it up here.

As many of you know, there is no one standard way of transliterating from Arabic to Roman letters. So "Mohammed", "Mohammad", and "Mohamed", and "Muhammad" are all quasi-correct ways of spelling the prophet's name in English language texts. This can be quite a hassle on Wikipedia.

It seems to me that three things are needed.
 * 1) We need people to provide the names in for Arab figures. For instance, Abu Sayyaf (organization), Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (poet), and Taif (city) are lacking their names written out in Arabic. If I can get some volunteers, I'll try to collect a list of articles that need this.
 * 2) We need to see if we can agree on some sort of standard spelling for Arabic articles on Wikipedia. For instance the "El" in Mohamed ElBaradei and the "al" in Mohammed Atta al Sayed are spelled the same in Arabic letters, but are translated differently in English. Is there a reason for this? (Both people are Egyptian.) If we can agree on a standard, then we can move articles to standard names (with redirects, of course).
 * 3) We need to make sure we have proper redirects for alternate spellings for Arabic articles. For instance, if someone looks up Muhammad Atta, this needs to redirect to Mohammed Atta al Sayed. This can be confusing. Doing a little Googling, I found that the most common spellings for Mohammed are "Mohammed", "Mohammad", "Muhammad", and "Mohamed". (This applies to the Prophet as well as other people with this name.) The common spellings for Abdullah are "Abdullah", "Abdallah", and "Abdulla". "Mohammad Naif", and "Muhammad Nayef" (Sultan Nayef of Gandamatto), Etc.

If I can get some volunteers, I'll try to organize a project. Who's in? – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 15:24, July 14, 2005 (UTC)


 * 1) Me. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 15:24, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) I was going to start making the Naming conventions (Arabic) policy, so I think I have a lot to contribute and many ideas that could help. 500LL 21:11, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, looks like it's just us. Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Arabic). – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 16:58, July 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * None of this is necessary. You can spell any Arabic name anyway you want in English, so establishing a "right" way to spell it is counter-productive. All that's needed are a few Disambiguation pages so people can tell Muhammad Ali from Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Ali from Muhammad Ali, and a few intelligent search pages to redirect people.
 * Nuttyskin 06:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

About maghrebi names
The article says that maghrebi names are influenced by Berber and French. That is true about Berber but definitly wrong about French I have never heard of any ethnic Arab or ethnic Berber Algerian, Morrocan or Tunisian with a French sounding name. Occasionaly you can hear a French or Spanish sounding nickname. North African Jews had French sounding first names, but they have all immigrated to France or Israel, and very few are left in the Maghreb (if any at all).

French vulcanologist Haroun Tazieff
I removed French vulcanologist Haroun Tazieff from the list of non-Muslims because his father was actually a Muslim, which is why he gave his son a Muslim name.

Last section with the family tree is totally wrong
The last section contains two major errors. One is that when an Arabic woman gets married her second (last) name is NOT changed, women keep their last names. Second is the example given where the woman's name changes to: something Abdul. Classic mistake, Abdul is not a name, it's part of a name it literally means "servant of" and must be followed by a name of God. Someone may be called Abdul-Rahman (more accurately Abd-el-Rahman). I made two adjustments, Yasmin gets to keep her name, and Abdul is renamed Adel.

Arabic Family Naming Convention
I have completly changed the paragraph under this section, because the previous section was completly wrong. I put in the actual naming conventions... so let me know if you see anything wrong.

Let me know if you have any questions

128.61.43.11 03:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)Ayyad

the Tughra or Sultan's monogram was a specifically Turkish (Oghuz Turkic) invention, and was likely derived from the design of the "tamgha"s (brands) of the Oghuz (Turkmen) tribes, although it used arabic calligraphy. AFAIK the Tughra reads "al-muZaffar" not just "muZaffar"

see Enc. of Islam II "Tughra"

86.16.113.121 06:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)ybgursey@yahoo.com

"The daughter also follows the same custom but after marriage she takes her husband's first name as her second part of her name"

I think there's some error here .. what I know is that women don't change their name after marriage in arabic traditions/hisory (even now in most arabic countries) ... ie she keeps her original name, this is true before and after islam .. if somebody can correct this in the original article, it would be nice .. or if it's true can some examples of famous characters be given (on the other hand, every famous woman in arabic or islamic history I am aware of, is example to support what I stated)

Thanks --86.16.113.121 (UTC)

Your right about the fact that the woman that gets married actually keeps her name. I tried fixing that before, but apparantly someone changed it back to the old WRONG version, again if you have any issues with what is up there talk over it over here first.

03:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Ayyad

I'm wondering about the idea that people don't name children exactly after their relatives. I had the impression, in Syria at least, that it was common to name the first born son after his grandfather. In fact, I knew 15 year old boys who called each other "abu so-and-so" because it was just assumed that when they did have a son their son would have that name. Jennie77 (talk) 17:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

list of given names
I put the list of given names in table format; while I was doing that, I noticed that one of the entries ended with "[more]", suggesting that it was pasted from some other webpage. Hm. —Tamfang 17:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That is a sure possibility as with many things on WP. Eric Wester 16:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this right?
So, if I'm understanding this right, in Arabic, you don't have a name (in the Western sense) so much as a title? What I mean is, my name, Robert, technically means something ("bright fame") but that meaning is basically academic at this point because the word itself has no meaning in English. This article, OTOH, seems to suggest that Arabic names are kind of long title-type names, where each word of the name still has modern, relevant meaning in Arabic. IOW, if we used such practices in the West, I would be addressed as "Bright Fame." Correct? RobertM525 (talk) 20:32, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you saying it can't be a realio trulio name unless it's unintelligible in the current language? I really don't think that would hold up well across cultures.  In particular, what about the culture that coined the name Robert (or Hrothbearht or whatever it was)?  —Tamfang (talk) 05:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Arabic names exhibit the same variety you find in English names. Not all Arabic names are intelligible to people living in 2008, although many are. Common Arabic names such as Ibrahim, Yoseph, Meriam and the like originate from proto-semitic languages that are no longer spoken and hence mean nothing in everyday life. In all Arabic countries you will come across names that are derived from the languages that were spoken thousands of year ago but mean nothing today. So in summary, there are names like "Joy", "Biff", and "Happy" but there are also names like "Robert", "John", and "Mike". But even in the "Joy" case, most people do not think of the underlying meaning of the name in their everyday life. Anyway, I'm seeing several errors in this article but I'll correct those later. - Anonymous.

Some suggested wording changes
"Sometimes Muslim or otherwise Arabic names are used by people who are not Muslims or even have origins in the Middle East." Change "not Muslims or even" to "neither Muslim nor".

"...despite the fact that their families may have resided outside Egypt for several generations." Shorten it to "...even people who's families have reside outside Egypt for generations."

"spelt" is a type of wheat. Change it to "spelled".

"Abu Karim is a kunya, Muhammad..." Replace the "," with a ";" or break the run-on into two sentences with ". " Do similarly with the rest of this extreme run-on sentence.

"Most Afghans speak Iranian languages." Instead of saying that most Afghans speak Iranian languages, should you say they speak forms/variation/dialects (whatever word is appropriate) of Persian?

"In Afghanistan and, persons claiming to be related to the prophet are called Sayeds,..." You may have meant to say "In Afghanistan, persons claiming to be related to the prophet are called Sayeds,..".

Yes, I break the rule and place punctuation outside the quotation marks for good reason. If it is not part of the quoted material, it should not be inside the quotation marks. And the sentence containing the quotation needs its own punctuation. I appeal to the grammar rule makers to change the rule.

I nit-pic sentences in Wikipedia, but I am sypathetic the the authors who likely don't have proof readers until after their words are posted.

Thank you for your Wikipedia entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.5.245.62 (talk) 22:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * For future reference: create a new section on a Talk page by clicking "new section" at the top, and write the section title in the small box that appears above the main editing panel. —Tamfang (talk) 01:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Biblical names: I have always understood Ilyas to to Elias, not Elijah. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.22.236.230 (talk) 15:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Elias is a Greek version of Elijah. —Tamfang (talk) 19:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Exclusively Christian names
At this part of section, Issa is actually a name used in the Arab World, mostly in Arabian Gulf, it means Jesus and is clearly used in the Qur'an. I don't know where to put that, in the "exclusivly christian names" between brackets or the table above and remove the cell where Yassou is put (i.e. to not repeat the entry) .. I am not sure.

However, I am writing a note at the end of this section for the time being.

93.144.131.197 (talk) 22:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's correct to say "mostly in the Arabian Gulf", that is far from accurate. The name is used by both Christians and Muslims. Muslims do not use Yassou' but it is used by Christians; I would not consider Issa to be an exclusive Christian name, and I would not remove Yassou' from the list because this one is indeed exclusively used by Christians. --Maha Odeh (talk) 06:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Idris, Antun, Iskander, obviously Mustafa and Qaiser are all also Muslim Arabic names - I know family friends and relatives who self identify themselves as Muslim but have those names. This alone disproves the credibility of that completely unsoiurced table. There was also a reply above about someone who knows a Christian named Muhammed, so I believe arguably there are no exclusive names - at least not any more. Also there isn't a table for exclusively Muslim names (if there are any even) which makes me question the bias of this article also. I will remove the table until as I believe all it's information is incorrect, as per wikipedia rules for unsourced material. Please amend it and remove bias by making one for exclusive muslim names too. Here it is for anyone who wants to fix it:


 * Exclusively Christian names:


 * {| class="wikitable"

! Arabic name ! English name
 * Andraous, Idris
 * Andrew
 * Antun, Tanios
 * Anthony
 * Boutrus
 * Peter
 * Boulus, Baha
 * Paul
 * Iskandar
 * Alexander
 * Istfan, Mustafa
 * Stephen
 * Girgis
 * George
 * Morqos
 * Mark
 * Timothaous
 * Timothy
 * Qaisar
 * Caesar
 * }
 * Pink Princess (talk) 01:36, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Morqos
 * Mark
 * Timothaous
 * Timothy
 * Qaisar
 * Caesar
 * }
 * Pink Princess (talk) 01:36, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * }
 * Pink Princess (talk) 01:36, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Iskandar
Is it true that Iskandar is an exclusively Christian name? I thought it was used by Muslims too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.96.46 (talk) 23:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It's used among muslims too --Bunifa88 (talk) 14:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have a relative called Iskander who is a muslim - but then again I also know a Muslim called Michelle. Pink Princess (talk) 01:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh please! There are tons of Iskandars in my country, and they're all Muslims. Ratibgreat (talk) 08:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Christian-Islamic Conversion
There was a badly written, misplaced and probably unneeded version on Islamic-Christian conversion and name changes, which i deleted - especially since it is completely unsourced.

I think it shouldn't have been specifically in the Christian names section as it is unrelated, and probably warrants it's own section. Also it seems to specifically just mention Islamic-Christian conversions, which is not only a much rarer occurance worldwide but also seemed biased in mentioning that without mention of the opposite.

Also I think it is probably a no-brainer as it is the same with all religious conversions and name changes with all cultures, and if it needs to be rewritten, should be in a seperate section, refering to the more common Christian-Islamic conversions instead of/alongside Islamic-Christian conversions. Pink Princess (talk) 01:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Arabic Family Naming Conventions
In the section titled Arabic Family Naming Conventions it says: "If Saleh [al-Fulan] marries a wife (who would keep her own maiden, family, and surnames [al-Goswami.]), their children will take Saleh's family name. Therefore, their son Mohammed would be called Mohammed ibn Saleh ibn Tariq al-Goswami." Shouldn't that be "their son Mohammed would be Mohammed ibn Saleh ibn Tariq al-Fulan?"50.193.233.25 (talk) 21:08, 7 June 2016 (UTC) '50.193.233.25 (talk) 21:08, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Women don't take their husband's name
"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."

In the arab world women do not take the name of their husband upon marriage. So, I find this statement rather odd. I never heard of such a thing (and I know many arab-western mixed couples where most women kept their name and in case only took their husband's last name). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.112.136.163 (talk) 12:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

"The female version is amah X, so the female version of Abdullah is Amatuallah."
shouldn't it be Amahullah, or amat X? the two doesn't fit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.173.126.176 (talk) 20:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The letter ta marbuta (ﺓ) is variously transliterated as h or t: see the ALA-LC (Library of Congress) and DIN 31635 transliteration standards in the Romanization_of_Arabic.


 * The difference arises on the position of the letter in an idafa (genitive construction):
 * if the word ama(ﺓ) occurs independently or as the second element of an idafa (the X of an ama(ﺓ)), it should end with an h (X-amah);
 * if it occurs as the first element of an idafa (the ama(ﺓ) of X), it should end with a t (amat-X). In the example given, using allah, this would be amat-u-allah or, more simply, amatullah.


 * Note: the transformation of the a in allah to a u is an example of Arabic sandhi (here, elision) following a nominative ending damma . Likewise, Abdullah (abd-u-allah). gergis (talk) 09:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * yeah, now i remember i learned that ta-marbuta turns to T at some cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.172.179.214 (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

"al" and "el"
Very helpful insights. However, I am missing an explanation of the meaning of "al" and/or "el" in Arabic names.

Arab Bias
I know this is an Arabic-based article, but in the "Common Mistake" section where it says "Even Indian Muslims commit the same error. If a person's name is Abd-ul-Rahim (Servant of the Merciful), his companions may call him as Mr Abdul (Servant of) erroneously which will sound quite odd to a native speaker of Arabic.", it is as if it's the seventh deadly sin to call someone Mr Abdul or Mr Rahman. As a subcontinental I can attest to the fact that Indian AND Bangladeshi Muslims use the Arabic naming system in the Western model - for instance, an Abdur Rahman in Bangladesh (a name as common at John Smith in the West) would say his first name is Abdur and surname Rahman, even if it makes no sense.

I mean, so what if it doesn't make sense to Arabs. Doesn't mean the subcontinentals are WRONG! Ratibgreat (talk) 08:28, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Greek weirdness
In the table in "Arabic names and their biblical equivalent" the Greek Names column is a weird mixture of the Greek and Roman alphabets. --rossb (talk) 20:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I've now corrected this - but there seems to be no good reason why some of the names have Greek equivalents given and others not! --rossb (talk) 10:35, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

ibn vs. bin
'ibn' resp. 'bin' both mean the same. Is there any difference in the way of using? Arturius001 (talk) 20:26, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so, they both mean "the son of", so if someone is named Mohammed bin Rashid it would mean Mohammed the son of Rashid, so if you use ibn instead of bin it would mean the same thing, not so sure though I've learned some complicated things from Arabic that confused me even though I'm a native speaker. Quadmuffs (talk) 12:19, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Muhammad Nayef
Muhammad Nayef is a Sultan of Gandamatt -present, "Moh"d Naif", "Yunus" and "Unos", "Sulayman" and "Solaiman", etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.208.125.228 (talk) 14:59, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Quotation marks and apostrophes in transliterated names
I should be glad if someone could clarify the distinction (in transliterated arabic names) between (what looks like) a quotation mark, and (what looks like) an apostrophe. For example, I'm proofing a paper translated from Russian into English, which includes names such as ‘Avvas-Baqi (with a left single quotation mark).

Is this correct usage? If the mark indicates something omitted, then I would expect an apostrophe; But in truth I'm completely ignorant of the convention, so I hesitate to change it.

This is aggravated by the fact that if dumb quotation marks are used, most word processors will "correct" them — in the case of English, often incorrectly, e.g. '98 gets changed to (left single quotation mark)98 instead of (apostrophe)98.

I should be grateful for any help. Perhaps this information would be worth adding to the article also?

Paul Magnussen (talk) 20:26, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Abd al-Yasuʿ (masc. ) / Amat al-Yasuʿ (fem.) ("slave of Jesus") SLAVE?
Just wondering why when Abd is used for a Muslim it means servant, yet when used by a Christian it means Slave?

Is there a reason for this? Or should it also say "slave to Muhammad? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.209.144.248 (talk) 16:51, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

True "A common form of Muslim Arab names is the combination of ʿAbd ("servant", fem. ʿAmah) followed by a description of God. A particularly common masculine example is Abdullah (عبد الله "servant of God")" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.209.144.248 (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

How do they know the pronunciation?
This may be a stupid question but: Since there are no written short vowels in the Arabic language (only long vowels are written) I wonder how Arabic-speaking people know how to pronounce a name they don't know yet. In Japanese the same problem goes to Kanji but they have Furigana to explain the pronunciation if they don't know the pronunciation. How do Arabic-speaking people do that? E. g., how do they know how to pronounce علوان‎‎?--31.16.72.127 (talk) 04:48, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Prophet Mohammed
There is the use to add  QSSSL (fr) or Friede sei über ihm (de) or peace and blessing of God be upon him (en) to the name, if mentioned by believers. AVS (talk) 20:52, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Abu and sort order
Does anybody know what is the correct sort order for names containing "abu"? See for example the contents of Category:Members of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Should, for example, Abu Ghadiya appear under "G" or under "A"? – Uanfala (talk) 11:20, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * with the understanding that this the guideline for Wikipedia only, the relevant place to look is WP:NAMESORT: Modern names with Abu, Abd, Abdel, Abdul, Ben, Bin and Bent are considered compound names and particles are integral to the name. So Abu Ghadiya, on Wikipedia, would be sorted under "A". Hope this helps, ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 12:10, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks! I hadn't noticed that. Are there any exceptions though? Say, names where "abu" isn't treated as a kunya anymore or is a different word altogether? – Uanfala (talk) 12:16, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Per WP:NAMESORT, if it's a modern family name (e.g., Mohamed Abolayla), the DEFAULTSORT sortkey would also be set at Abolayla, Mohamed. Only if the word "Abu" or its derivatives do not appear in the article title / WP:COMMONNAME altogether, should they not be part of the sort key (e.g., Jabir ibn Hayyan, for Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan, is sorted under "J"). ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 12:34, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Abdulrahman
Abdulrahman 77.78.212.39 (talk) 21:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)