Arabic names have historically been based on a long naming system. Many people from Arabic-speaking and also non-Arab Muslim countries have not had given, middle, and family names but rather a chain of names. This system remains in use throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Name structure
The () is the given name, first name, or personal name; e.g. "Sami" or "Shamna". Most Arabic names have meaning as ordinary adjectives and nouns, and are often aspirational of character. For example, Muhammad means 'Praiseworthy' and Ali means 'Exalted' or 'High'.
The syntactic context will generally differentiate the name from the noun or adjective. However, Arabic newspapers will occasionally place names in brackets, or quotation marks, to avoid confusion.
In fact, the name Muhammad is so popular throughout parts of Africa, Arabia, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia, that it is often represented by the abbreviation "Md.", "Mohd.", "Muhd.", or just "M.". In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, due to its almost ubiquitous use as a first name, a person will often be referred to by their second name: Md. Dinar Ibn Raihan Mohd. Umair Tanvir Md. Osman
The nasab () is a patronymic or matronymic, or a series thereof. It indicates the person's heritage by the word ibn ( "son of", colloquially bin) or bint (, "daughter of"). In the 1995 book Name Studies (De Gruyter), wrote that, although the nasab was still common contemporarily, ibn and bint were omitted "in almost all Arab countries".
Ibn Khaldun () means "son of Khaldun". Khaldun is the father's personal name or, in this particular case, the name of a remote male ancestor.
ʿAmmār ibn Sumayya means "ʿAmmār son of Sumayya". Sumayya is the personal name of ʿAmmār's mother; the same person can also be identified by his father's personal name, "ʿAmmār ibn Yasir". In later Islamic periods, the nasab was an important tool for determining a child's father by describing paternity in a social (i.e., to whom the mother was legally married at the time of conception) rather than a biological sense, because the father's biological identity can be grounds for speculation. In early Islamic contexts, this function is not yet well established. This stems from a legal principle introduced by Islam regarding the legal status of children (they can only arise from marriage) and changes to waiting periods relating to divorce to establish an undisputed legal father for any child. This function only develops with Islam, meaning that one can find many Companions of the Prophet bearing a maternal nasab, as the naming conventions reflected in their names still stem from pre-Islamic attitudes and beliefs.
The laqab (), pl. alqāb (), can be translated to English as agnomen; cognomen; nickname; title, honorific; last name, surname, family name. The laqab could be purely descriptive of a person, express admiration or be insulting and derogatory.
An example is the name of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, which uses the Arabic definite article. is the Arabic version of the name Aaron and means "the Rightly-Guided".
The laqab was used as a regnal title by the Caliphate. This was most prominent in Abbasid times, for example al-Manṣūr bi’llāh.
Another common form of is that of compounds ending with (), ('of the State'), ('of the Kingdom'), or ('of Islam'). Examples include Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, Shams al-Dīn, Nūr al-Dīn, Izz al-Din, Nāṣir al-Dawla, Niẓām al-Mulk, Sayf al-Islām.
In ancient Arab societies, the use of a laqab was common, but today it is restricted to the surname, or family name, of birth.
The () surname could be an everyday name, but is mostly the name of the ancestral tribe, clan, family, profession, town, city, country, or any other term used to show relevance. It follows a family through several generations. A demonym example is , meaning that the person is originally from Aleppo or a descendant of people from Aleppo. For a profession example, meaning "the tailor".
The laqab and nisbah are similar in use, but they could be used simultaneously. For example: Sayf Al-Dīn Al-Halabi.
A kunya (, kunyah)Shahpurshah Hormasji Hodivala, Historical Studies in Mug̲h̲al Numismatics, Numismatic Society of India, 1976 (Reprint of the 1923 ed.) is a teknonym in Arabic names. It is a component of an Arabic name, a type of epithet, in theory referring to the bearer's first-born son or daughter. By extension, it may also have hypothetical or metaphorical references, e.g. in a nom de guerre or a nickname, without literally referring to a son or a daughter.Pedzisai Mashiri, "Terms of Address in Shona: A Sociolinguistic Approach", Zambezia, XXVI (i), pp. 93–110, 1999 For example, Sabri Khalil al-Banna was known as Abu Nidal, "father of struggle".
Use of a kunya implies a familiar but respectful setting.
A kunya is expressed by the use of abū (father) or umm (mother) in a genitive construction, i.e. "father of" or "mother of" as an honorific in place of or alongside given names in the Arab world.
A kunya may also be a nickname expressing the attachment of an individual to a certain thing, as in Abu Bakr, "father of the camel foal", given because of this person's kindness towards camels.
Common naming practices
Arab Muslim A common name-form among Arab Muslims is the prefix (, "servant", "worshipper") combined with the word for God (Allah), or with one of the epithets of God. For example, ( "servant of God"), ( "servant of the Exalted") ( "servant of the Most Merciful")
As a mark of deference, is usually not conjoined with the prophet's names. Nonetheless, such names are accepted in some areas. Its use is not exclusive to Muslims and throughout all Arab countries, the name Abdul-Massih, ( "servant of Christ"), is a common Christian last name.
Converts to Islam may often continue using the native non-Arabic non-Islamic names that are without any polytheistic connotation, or association.
Arab Christian Generally, Arab Christians have names indistinguishable from Muslims, with the exception of some explicitly Islamic names such as Muhammad, which are not usually borne by Christians. Some common Christian names are: Arabic versions of Christian names, e.g. saints' names: () for Peter, Boulos () for Paul. Names of Greek, Armenian, and Aramaic origin, which are also used by ethnically non-Arab Christians such as Armenians, Assyrians, or Copts. Use of European names, especially French and English names. This is a recent convention for Christian Arabs, which mainly started with the British and French mandates in the Levant. Examples include George Habash, Michel Aflaq, and Charles Helou. Names in honor of Jesus Christ: ( ) / () ("Servant of Jesus") (masc.) / (fem.) ("Servant of the Messiah") Derivations of ("Messiah"): ("Most Anointed"), ("More Anointed"), "Anointed" and "Infant Christ". The root, , means "to anoint" (as in masah) and is cognate to the Hebrew .
Dynastic or family name Some people, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, when descendant of a famous ancestor, start their last name with Āl "family, clan" (), like the House of Saud Āl Suʻūd or . Āl is distinct from the definite article (). If a reliably-sourced version of the Arabic spelling includes (as a separate graphic word), then this is a case of the definite article, so (capitalised and followed by a space, not a hyphen) should be used. Ahl, which has a similar meaning, is sometimes used and should be used if the Arabic spelling is .
Dynasty membership alone does necessarily imply that the dynastic is used – e.g. Bashar al-Assad. Arabic Meaning Transliteration Example 'the' Maytham al-Tammar 'family'/'clan of' Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud 'tribe'/'people of' Ahl al-Bayt
Example
Muḥammad ibn Salmān ibn Amīn al-Fārisī
Ism – Muḥammad (proper name, ) Nasab – Salmān (father's name, ) Nasab – Amīn (grandfather's name, ) Nisbah – al-Fārisī ().
"Muḥammad, son of Salmān, son of Amīn, the Persian"
This person would simply be referred to as "Muḥammad" or by his kunya, which relates him to his first-born son, e.g. Abū Karīm "father of Karīm". To signify respect or to specify which Muḥammad one is speaking about, the name could be lengthened to the extent necessary or desired.
Common mistakes
Non-Arabic speakers often make these mistakes: Separating "the X of Y" word combinations (see iḍāfah): With "Abdul": Arabic names may be written "Abdul (something)", but "Abdul" means "servant of the" or "follower 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 says "Abdul-Rahman", not merely "Abdul". If he introduces himself as "Abdul-Rahman" (which means "the servant of the Merciful"), one does not say "Mr. Rahman" (as "Rahman" is not a family name but part of his theophoric personal name); instead it would be Mr. al-Ahmad, the latter being the family name. Therefore, it is better to write "Abdul Rahman" as "abdu r-rahmān" and "abdul ghafār" as "abdu l-ghafār" . People not familiar with Arabic sandhi in iḍāfah: Habībullāh = "beloved (Habīb) of God (Allāh)"; 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[i]). To add to the confusion, some immigrants to Western countries have adopted Uddin as a surname, although it is grammatically incorrect in Arabic 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 the Merciful"), others may call him Mr. Abdul ("servant of the") which would sound quite odd to a native speaker of Arabic. Not distinguishing from : Some Arabic names include the Arabic word ( "nobility"). Here, ⟨ʻ⟩ represents the ayin, a voiced pharyngeal fricative, ⟨ʾ⟩ represents the hamza, a glottal stop, and ⟨l⟩ is spelled and pronounced at ordinary length, /l/. In , the l is written twice (⟨ll⟩) and pronounced twice as long (a geminate), as /l/ or /ll/. In Arabic pronunciation, and are clearly different. But Europeans, Iranians, and Indians may not pronounce some Arabic sounds as a native Arabic speaker would, and thus tend to pronounce them identically. For example, the name (Aladdin, "the Nobility of the Faith") is sometimes misspelled as by Europeans and Indians. There is another name (Aliullah, "the Nobility of God"), which uses both distinctly. Therefore, the name "علاء" must be written in Latin in the form of "Halāʾ " or "Halaa'e" to differentiate it between "Allāh" the name of God in Arabic, and also the female name آلاء "Ālāʾ " (Alaa'e) Which means "blessings" (God's blessings). Taking or for a middle name: As stated above, these words indicate the order of the family chain. English-speakers often confuse them with middle names, especially when they are written as "Ben", as it is the case in some countries. For example, Sami Ben Ahmed would be mistakenly addressed as Mr. Ben Ahmed. To correctly address the person, one should use Mr. Sami or Mr. Sami Ben Ahmed.