watervole | (no subject)

Entry tags:

arabic names,
islam

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Been wandering more around the Science Museum site (still unwell, going to have to cancel today's math lesson, which is a real pain as it's with a pupil who's only on her second lesson).

I've had an interest in Arab/Muslim science for many years - goes back to the days when I was running an RPG set in that culture - so I've been visiting that part of their web site. A frustration I've often found with the names of the scientists is that they are offered with no translation - and the names are so long and complex and full of cultural elements that translation would often be interesting.

eg. Let's take

Ala al-Din Abu al-Hassan Ali ibn Abi-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi (Ibn al-Nafis)

who discovered that blood from the right to the left side of the heart via the lungs (and thus corrected some of Galen's mistakes), wrote a massive medical encyclopaedia and other stuff.

Ala al-Din (the original version of Aladdin) - means "excellence of religion" (a bit like calling a Christian girl 'Faith') There's often a descriptive element like this in a name. It's called the 'laqab'

Abu al-Hassan - means that he's the father of Hassan (normally only the first son is included in the father's name) (called the 'kunya)

Ali - probably his personal name (known as the 'ism')

ibn Abi-Hazan - means he's the son of Abi-Hazan (I'm getting nowhere on abi-Hazan, though there appears to be a modern (I think) Sufi musician by that name.) (the patronymic is called the 'nasab')

al-Qarshi - don't know. Probably a geographical name of some kind. Ah, a bit more research gives me a guess of 'from Cairo' (which is where he worked as an adult) Cairo (Arabic: القاهرة transliteration: al-Qāhira), which means "the triumphant" (I could be totally wrong, but it's at least plausible)

al-Dimashqi - he was born near Damascus and studied medicine there. This element could well mean 'from Damascus' (occupational, geographical or tribal elements to a name are called 'nisba')

Ibn al-Nafis - this one took me quite a while to find. It probably means 'son of 'the precious'' - no, not a Gollum reference...

When you get two ibn s, then normally one would be the father and the other the grandfather, but here, I'm confused as they aren't one after the other.

Also, it's worth noting that Ibn al-Nafis was not actually part of his formal name - however, it's the name he's known to historians by. This suggests that it was some kind of title bestowed on him - but I have no idea whether it was a formal title, or one that reflects the importance of his work. (a bit like the 'Venerable' Bede)

If anyone knows what this part of his name means - or indeed why he was given the name - I'd really like to know. (clearly is is 'son of' something, but the family name element is there in his full name, so why the alternate name? An adoptive parent? A valued teacher? Something like 'son of medicine'?)

Arabic names are used in different ways at different times. As a kid, he might have been Ali. When his first son was born, people would probably have called him Abu al-Hassan most of the time. On very formal occasions, the entire name would have been used. What I can't tell is whether Ibn al-Nafis was a name actually used during his lifetime. (I was going to look up Avicenna for an example of a name bestowed on a scientist by later generations, but that turns out to be a Romanisation of Ibn Sina - so it's more of a transliteration)

All ideas/inspirations/random thoughts welcome.

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I think it's interesting what names tell you about a culture. I'm aware of names that have the patronym in it, like the scandinavian(I think) X-son or X-dottir, dictating that this person is the progeny of X, but I've not come across one that includes the first son's name as well.

Would it be a mark of shame for a man, like the good doctor you mentioned, to get to "a certain age" and to be missing the "and my son's name is" part of his name?

Also, is there a patronymic tradition in the UK? I know we share the toponymic thing with them, see Robin of Loxley or William of Orange, but I don't know of any patronym traditions.

Although now I think of it, Russian naming conventions have/had a convention of a your middle name being a dimiutive of your father's name too...

Gah. getting distracted. Must get back to work...

Interesting question. Certainly a lot of cultures place a strong value on having a son.

Patroynms were very strong at one time in the UK, but they got subsumed into surnames. Just look at the frequency of names like 'Johnson' (John's son), 'Patterson', 'Stevenson', 'Frederickson', 'Jones' (John's son again - there's a whole story in its right about how the majority of old Welsh first names were lost and replaced with 'John' resulting in Jones as such a common Welsh surname). Then there's all the Scottish names - McDonanld (Donald's son), etc. Similarly a lot of Irish names.

Toponyms got subsumed into surnames as well. eg Lindsey (my maiden name) My ancestors do indeed come from Lindsey (a 'part' of Lincolnshire).

We've also had the naming by job convention as well: Tailor, Smith, etc.

I have to admit, I love toponyms. The problem is, my favourite one is a place name. The only place that's called Hillhillhillhill....

Which one's that? I know of several cases of RiverRiver. (any river with a name life Avon/Afton is Welsh in origin)

Torpenhow Hill probably. Wikipedia claims it doesn't exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill

Apparently it's probably not real, but the name is still cool...

A pity, because some years ago there was a suggestion in (I think) alt.fan.pratchett to have a meet on the top of Torpenhow Hill to eat Naan Bread and drink Chai Tea... ;-)

Giggle. I like that one.

is there a patronymic tradition in the UK?

Patronymics are not currently used in the UK, but an immense number of UK surnames are frozen former patronymics. Every Scottish and Irish "Mac" is a former patronymic, as are many Scottish and Irish names beginning with "C" (like mine). Most Welsh names ending in "s" are former patronymics, Richards, Howells, Hughes, Owens, etc. Most Welsh names beginning with "P" or "B" are former patronymics: Pritchard, Powell, Pugh, Bowen, etc.

And all English names ending with "son", obviously enough. It all adds up.

Ah! Because it would be a contraction of 'ap Owen'. ('ap' meaning son of)

I'd never thought about the 's' endings before either.

Can you give some examples of ones beginning with 'C'? (and what's the derivation?)

Could it be that it started out as a part of a sentence?

"Who's that young man?"

"He's Huw, Owen's boy from down the valley."

Which then got contracted after long use as just "Owen's", and then just lost the apostrophe?

Please note that the above idea is entirely conjecture, so may well be entirely wrong...

I'm betting on "That's Hugh, Owen's son"

ie. I'll bet it was a formal patronymic originally, especially if there was more than one Hugh in the village.

I'd love to know if there's a north/south divide in Wales as to the frequency of 'Pritchard' and 'Richards' as surnames. Given that I think one derives from the Welsh and one from English language.

Been looking for a web site that does free name distribution maps, but the one I found is down with an overload at present. C'est la vie.

Can you give some examples of ones beginning with 'C'? (and what's the derivation?)

Cotter=MacOttar. I can't remember any more C's right now, but there are G's and K's to choose from, like Guinness=MacInness and Keane=MacEane (I'm not going to attempt Irish spellings, which would go on for miles of alternating vowel and consonant and look unrecognisable as the modern name)

Then there are all the O's, like O'Neill, that I forgot to mention.

Ah, light bulb. The 'C' at the start is what's left of the 'Mac'. That makes sense. Thanks.

That's really cool.

Now that you mention it, I remember the Mac and Mc prefixes, but I didn't know about the welsh ones. Am I right in remembering that Fitz- as a prefix to a surname means "bastard son of"?

Gah. Now, thanks to you using the phrase "frozen patronymics", I have the image of names standing around in the snow, with scarves on, shivering...

You're correct about 'Fitz'.

Yay. My trivia makes me look smart, yet again!

We did a Gaelic translation on McIntee or McCeinte as its originally spelt and we got " son of the good fool"

Although I can't offer any suggestions as to your questions on Ibn al-Nafis, I wanted to say that this post truly fascinated me. Thanks for sharing!

I can´t offer any information but I read your article with great interest. Thank you!

Moving from names to pictures I love your icon. I want a cat that looks like it. would be the perfect successor to my Murr who I just lost at 16 years old

I understand perfectly. My tomcat Tygr looks a lot like that icon cat. If you want to see him, try my LJ.*Hugs*

An interesting digression here might be the modern¹ use of faux-kunya noms de guerre by Arabic-heritage militants, such as Abu Jihad, Abu Sayyaf.

A question for you, though: why might the kunya be Abu al-Hassan in some people's names, but in others just Abu Hassan? Is there a semantic distinction, or is it just tradition or preference?

1 At least, I think it's modern...

Probably linguistic. Arabic names tend to shift a bit when you get Islamic cultures that aren't Arabic speaking.

A musician friend of mine is a direct descendent of Avicenna - his name is Mohammed Ibn Sina and he is in a Moroccan folk band called marghrebibeat based in Hebden Bridge! Small world, eh?

I can't help with the above, but it was a fascinating read! :-)

One of the frustrating things about Arabic naming (as with Roman naming) is that it has a theoretical structure that is then violated by all sorts of exceptions and odd names and constructions from pre-Islamic (or, depending on the area, pre-Arabic) traditions, or corruptions that have slipped in since Arabic practices were adopted. :-)

Ism: I think Ala al Din is actually his ism; usually an ism is a traditional name, an attributive name (like this one), or a theophoric name (praising God, like Abd al Rahman). Names don't generally lead off with a laqab, so I'd be surprised to see one here.

Kunya: My guess is that the kunya is actually Abu Hassan Ali, that Ali is part of his son's name. I get some Google hits (including a Moroccan sultan and a theologian) under Abu al Has[s]an Ali.

Nasab: I notice in the intro you spell this Ibn Abi Hazm; I find that more common than Abi Hazan which you use lower down. Many references to Ibn al Nafis use Ibn Abi al Hazm. Hazm can mean strict or stern, so that's probably his father's ism, Abi Haz[e]m or Abi al Haz[e]m. I get a lot of Google hits on people named Abi Haz[e]m or ibn/bin Abi Haz[e]m. It *might* even be a very old corruption of a kunya--someone was originally known as Abu al Hazem, that got ground down to Abi Hazem, and one of his sons became Ibn Abi Hazm. Pure speculation on my part.

Nisba: al Qarshi might be another geographic nisba, but my guess is it's a tribal nisba, possibly a corruption of al Quraysh, a popular Arab tribal name from what is now Saudi Arabia. This is also the conclusion of one person who has done a page in Wikipedia on naming. It's not a common variation, but there are a couple of hits on al Qarshi on Google that aren't related to Ibn al Nafis.

Ibn al Nafis: This, I think, is his laqab. Certainly it is used that way in most references to him (that is, it is used in place of his full true name). Maybe its his learning, his knowledge of medicine that was considered 'precious' (nafis).

It's certainly a cool thing to noodle about, isn't it? :-)

That could make sense. I'd been tossing between 'Hassan Ali' as a son's name, wondering if there could be two sons included in a kunya, or if it was a kunya and an ism.

I was guessing pretty wildly on al Qarshi - your explanation is at least as likely and probably more likely than mine.

The bit that really puzzles me is that if Ibn al-Nafis is his laqab, then why isn't it included as part of his full name? I still think it may have been a 'nickname' of some kind.

Many thanks for the thoughtful feedback - I find this kind of stuff really interesting.

The bit that really puzzles me is that if Ibn al-Nafis is his laqab, then why isn't it included as part of his full name? I still think it may have been a 'nickname' of some kind.

The laqab *is* a nickname--that's its purpose. Sometimes it's included when the full name is written out, but that's almost like mobsters being referred to as "Jimmy 'Fingers' Canistrari". Just as often, the laqab will be something a person is called *instead of* his/her 'proper' name. George Habash, founder of the PFLP, was just called "the Doctor" (al Hakim).

Many thanks for the thoughtful feedback - I find this kind of stuff really interesting.

Me too!

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