Arabic, Persian, and African name suggestions please!

Boy Names
1

A childhood friend of mine is currently around 7 and half months pregnant with her first baby.
She’s of Caribbean heritage, Muslim, and lived in Iran for 16 years so speaks Persian, and is a Canadian citizen with perfect English. So she’s got a lovely range of names to tap into.

She’s pretty sure it’s a boy, based on an undesired comment by her doctor during an ultrasound. She’s designated me as the resident name searcher, so I come to you for assistance.

She hadn’t starting looking at all really until now, and I can’t recall any boys names she particularly had an interest in. I do think she was a fan of the Hebrew version of [name]Nathaniel[/name], which is something like Natanieel.
And she’d like to use an African name in the middle, she has no interest in it being day specific though, as in “born on [name]Sunday[/name]” type of names.

I’d greatly appreciate some name suggestion of Arabic, Persian, and African backgrounds. :slight_smile:

2

[name]Altair[/name] (“the flyer”)
[name]Anwar[/name] (“brighter”)
[name]Habib[/name] (“beloved”, “darling”)
Ilyas (“my God is Yahweh”)
[name]Jinan[/name] ("garden/paradise)
Mazin (“rain clouds”)
Mirza (“prince”)

3

I love Ilyas! Thank you.

4

[name]Malik[/name]
[name]Tariq[/name]
[name]Adan[/name]
[name]Zain[/name], [name]Zane[/name], Zayn
[name]Kareem[/name]

5

Baraz
Javed
Kaveh
[name]Reza[/name]
Adnan
[name]Ali[/name]
[name]Omar[/name]
Bahadur
Faris

African Middle Names (as per behindthename.com) that I like a lot:

Ekene - “praise” in Igbo
[name]Adisa[/name] - “one who is clear” in Yoruba
Ayodele - “joy has come home” in Yoruba

6

I really like the name [name]Hamza[/name] (can also be spelled [name]Hamzah[/name]) which means strong or steadfast. There is an adorable little [name]Hamza[/name] in my son’s swimming class.

I also like [name]Rafiq[/name] (kind, friend) and [name]Hassan[/name] (beautiful, handsome).

7

I really like [name]Malik[/name] and [name]Tariq[/name]

8

I once dated a Persian named [name]Cyrus[/name], named after the [name]King[/name] of [name]Persia[/name]. I always loved his name, and now it seems to be getting a bit more popular lately.

9

Ilyas is the Arabic form of [name]Elias[/name], and is used exclusively by Christians. It’s one of the top 4-5 [name]Christian[/name] names.

[name]Hamza[/name] is very, very old-fashioned (like the butt of jokes old-fashioned).

[name]Cyrus[/name] is awesome but in Farsi it’s Khoroush.

10

[name]Ebrahim[/name] (Iranian form of [name]Abraham[/name])
Ihab (“gift”)
[name]Salim[/name] (“safe”)
Wasi (“broad-minded, learned”)
[name]Bastiaan[/name] (a version of [name]Sebastian[/name] used in the Caribbean)
[name]Lamar[/name] (comes from Old French, used in the Caribbean but would probably translate well on the Iranian side - and by that I mean phonetically as I don’t know what it might mean!)
[name]Jelani[/name] (“mighty” Swahili)
[name]Obi[/name] (“heart” Igbo)
Udo (“peace” Igbo)
Aristu (Iranian version of [name]Aristotle[/name],“best purpose”) - emphasis is on the first syllable i think, AYR-iss-tu (?)
Javed (“eternal”, Persian)

She does have a great wealth of names to draw on! I find African & Arabic names to be some of the most beautiful in both sound & meaning. Congratulations to her!

11

Ahh, I’ll keep that in mind about Ilyas. As for [name]Hamza[/name], here it’s far from old-fashioned, I know three who are under 10.:stuck_out_tongue:

12

I actually know a Muslim Ilyas :wink: But I guess it’s rare.

13

I am in [name]Canada[/name]–and I have seen it on plenty of young kids. I suggested it because my friend gets compliments on her child’s name all the time. But I have no real knowledge of how the name is perceived. I just like the sound :slight_smile:

14

They might be named in honor of relatives. For first-born sons, it’s almost required to name the baby after his paternal grandfather. My son is.

15

[name]Amir[/name]
[name]Samir[/name]
Oded
[name]Ahmed[/name]
Amel
Eyal
[name]Omar[/name]
[name]Omari[/name]
Farid
[name]Farouk[/name]
Jafar
[name]Nabil[/name]
[name]Kalil[/name]
[name]Jaleel[/name]
[name]Jamal[/name]
[name]Kadeem[/name]
[name]Kareem[/name]
[name]Hakim[/name]
[name]Rigel[/name]
[name]Salem[/name]
Cid/Cyd
[name]Idris[/name]
[name]Obadias[/name]/[name]Obediah[/name]
[name]Yousef[/name]
[name]Zaid[/name]
[name]Caspar[/name]/[name]Gaspar[/name]
[name]Darius[/name]/[name]Dario[/name]
[name]Naveed[/name]
[name]Naveen[/name]
Adwin
[name]Amare[/name]
[name]Kofi[/name]
[name]Kanye[/name]? LOL

I read that [name]Hamza[/name] means foul taste. Why is so popular?

16

[name]Hamza[/name] means strong I believe.

[name]Blade[/name]: That would make sense, I need to ask him.

17

Maybe in some cases, but here definitely not. The Hamzas I know weren’t named after anyone interestingly, as well as in the community I know the children are mostly named after religious historical people not family. Then again the Hamzas I know were Afghani, or Pakistani so perhaps those customs are different.

18

Ooohhhh definitely. I don’t know anything about what’s chic and fashionable in the non-Arab Muslim world. I’m sure it’s entirely different.

19

Oh check this out:
There are three sites for great Igbo names and a compiled list of names that show up on all three and have corresponding meanings.

@southernmaple suggested this one: I haven’t had time to find similar sources and make a list like he above yet. (Drat Graduate School). http://www.names4muslims.com/

Also http://www.namepedia.org/ has a cool feature where you can plug in a name and see what it’s “translation” is in a different language. So if your friend likes the meaning of the name but isn’t completely sold on how it sounds you could look at any of her other ethnic heritage options and see if you can come up with another suggestion. (behindthename.com does this too but I’m not sure they are great on African names).

20

In all honesty, it can be rather predictable and boring, lol. Many of the same names from historical/religious figures are just reused over and over and over.