A win for the SD!
Why would this surprise you? There have been Christians in the Arab lands for as long as there have been Christians in Europe. Naturally they have indigenous naming conventions. They’d have no reason to adopt anglicized names since their Christianity is not anglicized Christianity.
I think in this case it’s more like your name was Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun, and you would have to explain that Dr von Braun would work but Dr Braun would be incorrect.
That’s true, though one thing I noticed–working four years resettling refugees from Iraq, Syria, and other Arabic countries–is that Christians from those areas usually have given names distinct from Muslims. It got to the point where I could usually tell who were the Christians by seeing their first names on the list. Many are not so much “anglicized” names as they are Biblical names.
Well, Muslim Arabs would often have Biblical names as well - Issa has already been mentioned, and Ibrahim, Suleiman, Maryam and many others would be common. Some Biblical names are found equally among Christian and Muslim Arabs, while some are predominantly found among Christians or predominantly found among Muslims. There isn’t really a hard and fast rule for telling, except that if you find an Arab named after a New Testament figure who is of little or no significance in Islam - Butrus, for example, which corresponds to Peter - that person is probably a Christian. Mikhael (Michael) appears both in the Old Testament Bible and in the Qu’ran, but nowadays is a distinctively Christian name.
An Arab with a French name is likely - but not certain - to be a Christian Arab from Lebanon or Syria.
Tl;dr: There are distinctively Christian and distinctively Muslim names in Arab societies. But in many instances it’s only through familiarity that you will learn which is which.
Like the current President of Lebanon, Michel Aoun.
No idea. I’d use the whole name and then ask him how he prefers to be called. It may not be right, but it’s pretty easy.
Did you read any of the thread or just the title?
Is that directed at me? While searching for citations is a good idea, I don’t see why contacting the person as Dr. Mohammed Beshay Al-Fadhi (or whatever full name) would be wrong, even if a shorter version is preferred by the person. Because it might be hard to know without seeing the name. And different people might prefer different things, as sometimes happens with Spanish names.
If you think you are interested in or expect to be encountering names outside Anglo-American culture, you might want to consider reframing how you think about them.
For example, the framework of “first name-last name” clearly is confusing or ambiguous or inapplicable to many cultures. As is “Christian name-surname.”
You might want to start thinking about name someone in terms of “given name,” “family name” and other broader terms that are more applicable across cultures.
Thanks. Using the full name is not going to be wrong, even if he last heard it four years ago from an angry mother or spouse.
I think that is an American thing.
Which is exactly what was being asked - OP didn’t know which of the names were given name, family name, etc, so used the numeric placement of the names as the variables to refer to them until it was decoded.
In particular, in Arabic formations like “son of”, etc. are reasonably common. I’m certainly no expert at names, particularly Arabic ones. But using the full name, though ponderous, is rarely wrong.
[quote=“gdave, post:8, topic:915433, full:true”]For example, if he’s got “ibn” or “bin” or something phonetically equivalent in his name, that’s “son (of)”, with the name that follows being his father’s name.
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There’s also “abu” or “abul,” which means “father of.” It’s fascinating to me that having a son can result in changing one’s name.
This is an Egyptian thing, not pan-Arabic, but in Egypt a child’s middle name is legally required to be their father’s first name. Friends of mine (wife American, husband Moroccan) gave birth in Egypt planning to name their baby girl “Miriam Layla Karim” or something like that. They were NOT pleased to discover that their little girl’s name was going to be “Miriam Rachid Karim” whether they liked it or not.
Is it exclusively Egyptian? Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and Abu Ammar (Yasser Arafat) are Palestinian. Perhaps they picked up the habit from Egyptians?
That I do not know. I’m sure that Egyptians do it, and not all Arabs do it, but beyond that I’m ignorant.
Are those examples of a kunya?
Not like I knew that off the top of my head, but again, that wiki for Arabic naming was really informative.
Biblical names, with some exceptions tend to be used by Arab Christians, however amongst non Arab Muslims, use of Biblical names is pretty common. Mikhael for instance is a very common name, Binyamin (Benjamin) is gaining in popularity. Mariam (Mary) seems to be the name of half the 30 something females in the country.
Secondly, beware of false friends. There are many names which sound the same as western names, but have distinct meanings. For instance, Amber, which means “jewel”, Anna pronounced more like Aun na.
Finally, the opposite of the above is when distinct names mean the same thing. For instance, Atta-Ur Rehman means “God given”, the same as Theodore. At one time the convention was to translate, but not anymore.