Talk:Arabic name

message: 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)
replies: text: LlywelynII, Abu means "father of", and Abdul means "servant of". Ratibgreat (talk) 08:20, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Section on Arabic Christian Names

message: I added an "Other names" section describing some aspects of Arabic names, as I understand them. I'm not sure if what I have is entirely correct, so if anyone knows anything about this, please correct it and flesh out some of the details.
One particular question about the "Abu" thing: Is this actually used in the literal "Father of" sense, or is it more of a nickname, or descriptive aspect, sort of like the Roman cognomen? I ask because the two "Abu" names that come to mind when I think of this are Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Nidal, and these are both actually aliases that those people adopted. I don't know what "Musab" means, but "Abu Nidal" means the "Father of the Struggle," as the Wiki article points out.
So, is "Father of x" just some sort of common alias technique Arabs use, or is it also used in a literal sense sometimes?
: Abu  is commonly used among Arabs in everyday usage. First of all, you can of course use it to say that X is the father of Y. However, when it is used generally, it is used as a kind of way to talk to a person respectfully. Even people with no sons will be sometimes called "Abu something"; this something is their father name (If my father is Abdulaziz, and someone does not know my son's name or the name I would choose for my son if I had one, he'll just call me Abu Abdulaziz). Sometimes it is out of similarity to others; for instance, a known Arabic figure (Say Ali Bin Abu Talib) had a Son called Hassan, so if your name is Ali, people would start calling you Hassan.
: When the person actually has a son, the eldest son's name (And in rare cases, the eldest daughter's name) is used. I do not know a similar usage to it in English, or the roman cognomen you're refering to, but you can say it is some sort of a nickname used to avoid using the actual name, which is, when people are not close enough, might not be considered very respectful.
: Just an interesting thing to note; women also have such naming convention, and it is used as much as it is used with men. You'd find my mother, for instance, referred to as Um Khalid (or mother of Khalid).
: I hope that was meaningful; I find it hard to explain concepts I usually take for granted. --Khalid 16:44, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
::Re the contention that Abdul by itself just means "servant of...", and is not a complete name, I understand that sometimes the actual name being referred to is the general Semitic name Abdel, which is abd+el, "servant of God". As such it is identical with the Old Testament Obadiah=obed+yah.
::Nuttyskin 06:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

message: 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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  A Few changes 

message: 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. 
# 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.
# 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).
# 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)
# Me. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 15:24, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
# I was going to start making the Wikipedia: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)
thread_title:  An Arabic name project 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Arabic Family Naming Convention 

message: 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)
replies: text: That is a sure possibility as with many things on WP. Eric Wester 16:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  list of given names 

message: "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)
replies: text: 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)

text: Elias is a Greek version of Elijah. —Tamfang (talk) 19:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Some suggested wording changes

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Oh please! There are tons of Iskandars in my country, and they're all Muslims. Ratibgreat (talk) 08:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iskandar 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Christian-Islamic Conversion 

message: 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)
thread_title: Arabic Family Naming Conventions

message: "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)
thread_title:  Women don't take their husband's name 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Arab Bias 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Greek weirdness 

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

message: 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)
thread_title: Muhammad Nayef

message: 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)
thread_title:  Quotation marks and apostrophes in transliterated names 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Abd al-Yasuʿ (masc. ) / Amat al-Yasuʿ (fem.) ("slave of Jesus") SLAVE? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  How do they know the pronunciation? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Prophet Mohammed 

message: 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)
replies: text: with the understanding that this the guideline for Wikipedia only, the relevant place to look is WP:NAMESORT:  So Abu Ghadiya, on Wikipedia, would be sorted under "A". Hope this helps, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:10, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Abu and sort order 

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