Arabic Girl Names

Arabic is a root-and-pattern language, and that fact shapes its naming more than any other single thing.

Most Arabic words are built from a three-consonant root carrying a broad field of meaning, which is then poured into fixed patterns to produce related words. The root K-T-B gives writing, book, writer, office and library. For names this means an Arabic name usually sits in a visible family: Karima, generous, belongs to the root K-R-M along with the noun for generosity and the verb for being generous, and a speaker hears the connection immediately.

The consequence is that Arabic names are almost never opaque to the people using them. Where an English speaker may have no idea what their own name means, an Arabic name is usually transparent — which is part of why the meanings matter so much in the naming.

The library's Arabic section covers three overlapping bodies of names: the pre-Islamic and tribal stock, the Qur'anic and religious vocabulary, and the enormous set of quality-names built directly from adjectives. It is worth remembering that Arabic is not the same thing as Muslim: Arab Christians and Arab Jews have used this vocabulary for as long as anyone, and several names on this page appear in all three traditions.

Transliteration varies widely. Aisha, Ayesha, Aicha and Aysha are one name; so are Fatima and Fatimah. We list the spellings people actually use rather than imposing one system.