Hello Karina; actually i donno exactly how Palestinian or jordanian people say that, if you really wanna learn Arabic successfuly, then you have to understand that there is no strict meaning for anything in Arabic, but it depends on people culture, i mean that you can find a bunch of egyptian friends, and meanwhile everyone of them call his father his own way, so i think everyone call his father according to what he used to say since he was a child & according to his own culture, and this is the same for the rest of Arabian countries..but i can briefly give you some meanings for the word DAD: 1- BABA بابا 2- Waldi والدي 3- ABY ابي 4- ABOY ابوي 5- DADY دادي 6- ABOYA ابويا 7- PAPI بابي ** previously you can find various meanings...for example..the high-class people in egypt used to say #7 or 5 or 1 but the middle class use to say the same but most of them are sayin # 1....lowe class prefer # 6....but old Arabian people and some people of the Gulf are saying # 2 *HINT*..some ppl like to say DADY or PAPI cause they have the feeling that words like Aboya or Aboy are used by VULGAR PEOPLE....and in return these vulgar people think that the previous 2 words don't fit them. finally no base ... but the most common one is BABA I hope you can find my answer useful for you ; )

Palestinian or jordanian people use BABA بابا or ABOYA ابويا

Hello Karina, check out these links http://muttaqun.com/arabic/basic.html http://www.transparent.com/arabic/family-relations-terms-in-arabic/ http://www.languageguide.org/arabic/ http://www.learnarabiconline.com