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Help[Facts] Arabic use of names
My apologies if I did not use site properly, but I would like a primer" on the use of names in arabic. If someone is called el-terkerit, etc. What does the whole of the name represent. The parents, place of birth, family ties? In the newspapers some have very simple names, others have extended names with prefexes etc.
thank you
thank you
1
Replies
As far as I remember, al- is the Arabic word for "the" and is used in three cases.
First, a lot of male Arab names start with Abd- (servant of) and finish with one of the epithets of Allah:
Abd-al-Aziz would be "a servant of the mighty one"
Abd-al-Hamid - "servant of the praiseworthy one"
(Allah has 99 or 100 epithets, so that list can get really long)
Then, it can form nicknames that denote occupation, quality, or (like Daividh said) place of origin:
al-Qudsi - from Jerusalem
al-Mansur - the victorious one (first given to Abu Jaffar - the caliph who founded Baghdad)
al-Zahra - the shining one (referring to Mohammed's daughter Fatima)
al-Sarafi - the money changer
Finally, some of the prominent people in Islam got al- in front of their names as a form of reverence. Right now I can only think of al-Hasan, Mohammed's grandson who is a Shia martyr, his brother al-Hussein, and al-Hakim (the starter of the Druze - one of the sects in Islam) but I am sure there were more in that "category."
One final note: al- does not stand for family ties. The prefixes for that are ibn/bint (son/daughter of) and abu/umm (father/mother of).
I hope that helps a bit.
First, a lot of male Arab names start with Abd- (servant of) and finish with one of the epithets of Allah:
Abd-al-Aziz would be "a servant of the mighty one"
Abd-al-Hamid - "servant of the praiseworthy one"
(Allah has 99 or 100 epithets, so that list can get really long)
Then, it can form nicknames that denote occupation, quality, or (like Daividh said) place of origin:
al-Qudsi - from Jerusalem
al-Mansur - the victorious one (first given to Abu Jaffar - the caliph who founded Baghdad)
al-Zahra - the shining one (referring to Mohammed's daughter Fatima)
al-Sarafi - the money changer
Finally, some of the prominent people in Islam got al- in front of their names as a form of reverence. Right now I can only think of al-Hasan, Mohammed's grandson who is a Shia martyr, his brother al-Hussein, and al-Hakim (the starter of the Druze - one of the sects in Islam) but I am sure there were more in that "category."
One final note: al- does not stand for family ties. The prefixes for that are ibn/bint (son/daughter of) and abu/umm (father/mother of).
I hope that helps a bit.
1
My expertise in Arabic is limited to absorbing countless hours of the Iraq war on cable news, but I can answer the "el-terkerit" part of your question.
You're thinking of al-Tikriti, which was the last part of the name of Saddam and many of his relatives/thugs and meant "the Tikritan", denoting they were from the town of Tikrit. Some other Iraqi names ended in an-Najafi (the Najafan/from Najaf) and other similar forms.
I'm sure there's one or more protocols for the formation and structure of Arabic personal names, and it probably varies somewhat by country and culture in the Arabic-speaking world. ANY HELP OUT THERE, FOLKS?
Da.
You're thinking of al-Tikriti, which was the last part of the name of Saddam and many of his relatives/thugs and meant "the Tikritan", denoting they were from the town of Tikrit. Some other Iraqi names ended in an-Najafi (the Najafan/from Najaf) and other similar forms.
I'm sure there's one or more protocols for the formation and structure of Arabic personal names, and it probably varies somewhat by country and culture in the Arabic-speaking world. ANY HELP OUT THERE, FOLKS?
Da.
1