The Mispronunciation of Foreign Names: On Arabic, Muslim, and Islamic names

I don’t understand why we bless our children with names that aren’t pronounceable in our spoken languages. For example, the name/word Samina means "fat" (feminine) in Arabic; yet, it’s a common name especially in South Asian countries. Because no South Asian language, as far as I know, pronounces thaa (ﺙ) in spoken language (even if it exists in formal/written language), we spell it with the letter seen (س) instead. The actual Arabic name starts with a ,ﺙ and “Thamina” means precious, valuable.

So, when pronouncing certain letters is not common or easy in your native language, why should you have to adopt the letters of other languages (even if they have officially become a part of the formal dialect of your language), just so you can pronounce foreign words "correctly"? For instance, there’s no F (ف) in Pashto [I’ve no idea where the Pashtun tribe “Afridi” gets its name from and how! Is it supposed to be “Apridi”?] and no thaa/they (ﺙ), just like there’s no qaaf (ق) in English. So if the positive meaning of a good name is going to be distorted if the name is not pronounced properly (as with Thamina/Samina), then why even take the name? Why not keep a name original to your language, one that can be pronounced properly and not be distorted – and has a good meaning? I'm sure people have their reasons, though.

Besides, we don't even know the meanings of most of the foreign names we keep anyway. I mean, we keep them solely on the basis that they are the names of a prophet or his relatives/friends. Like, what does the name Uthmaan/Osman/Usman mean? Who knows – but its merit is that it was the name of one of the Prophet Muhammad’s most beloved companions (God be pleased with them all). I don’t have a problem with this, though. I understand and respect the idea of naming our children after people we hold in high esteem, such as religious figures.

But a Twitter buddy of mine recently pointed out to me that all of the Prophet’s companions’ names were from the pagan, jahiliyya (ignorance) period, and they did not change their names after converting to Islam. I know, I know – they’re big and important and influential and fully “Islamic” people, but what about their names? How “Islamic” are their names? This also hints at the idea that when non-Muslims convert to Islam, they need not change their names – since the companions of the Prophet (the sahabas) didn’t do that. No, wait, there were some companions whose original names were like “Abd al-shams,” meaning “Worshipper/slave of the sun” (Abu Hurayra’s name), and the Prophet encouraged him to change it. The Prophet’s grandfather, too, had a similar name, and we also know that the original name of  the Prophet’s father’s wasn’t Abdullah, but it was too “pagan,” too “un-Islamic,” so it was changed to an “Islamic” one – even though he wasn’t a Muslim, since he died before the Prophet’s birth.

Further, I've always wondered. What happens when a (non-English/non-American/etc.) Muslim has an English name? But we're Muslims, and we should have "Muslim" names -- except, no one has defined what a Muslim name actually means. No, wait - yes, we have: Arabic terms with positive meanings (even if we corrupt the meaning when we non-Arabs adopt the name and don't/can't pronounce it correctly at all). But a term from, say, the Pashto language with a beautiful meaning may never get the privilege of being considered Islamic. Neither would a beautiful English word/name. How unfortunate. Say, I, a Muslim and a Pashtun, choose to name my daughter, who will also be a Muslim and at least half Pashtun, Nikki. Nikki means "victory of the people" and derives from the name "Nicole." I don't think there's anything wrong with this, and I wouldn't understand why anyone would think there is -- my reason being that my real name is not an Arabic name; it has no attachment to Islam whatsoever. [Note I’m implying that Arabic and everything Arab is deemed Islamic and hence authoritative by most Muslims, especially non-Arab Muslims.] If I can have this non-Arabic, non-Islamic (not UN-Islamic) name that's not even Pashtun, what would Muslims/Pashtuns think if I took a name like Nikki?

To me, all that matters is the meaning of the name. My kids will have Pashtun names, ka khairee, whether their father is Pashtun or not (in which case, of course, I would have to have their father's opinion in the naming process as well), but that's just a personal preference; Pashto names appeal to me much more than do the names of other languages. I mean, take names like Kashmala! And Palwasha! And Barsalai! And, lo and behold, Orbala!! They even SMELL good from afar.

But I just think that if we can have Arab and Persian names, we shouldn't find anything wrong with having other foreign names, either. Like Amanda (means "she who must be loved" and has Latin origins; it also means "active and bright" in Sanskrit).