Marhaban to everybody
if you have time I would like to know something about Arabic names and family names.
I am not sure but I think that I read once that "family names" were an invention of the colonial administrations. Before , people were designated by their given name and then followed by the name of their father, grandfather, great grandfather and so on. Ahmed b.Mahmoud b.Karim etc.
is that true? Are there any differences between Arabic countries? A Syrian once explained to me that the different names had also a different denomination. I forgot but لقب was one of them. On my dictionary I found that it means title and family name.
Thank you in advance!
in jordan the last name also called "عشيرة"
my famly name in jordan was before the occupation of jordan and the name came to describe them.
The word لقب in Arabic is best translated into " "title" in English.
اِخْتَارُوا لَهُ لَقَباً مُلاَئِماً : أَي اِسْماً، ما يُسَمَّى بِهِ الْإِنْسَانُ غَيْرَ اسْمِهِ الأَوَّلِ يُلاَئِمُ صِفَةً مِنْ صِفَاتِهِ ذَمّاً أَوْ مَدْحاً
Real name: عمر بن الخطاب
Title:الفاروقعفوا ،Beni بني means sons of .... . This word can be used to refer to a group of people related by xth grandfather. Humans all share one grandfather so we all بني آدم sons of Adam. However, it's not commonly used in Libya. We only knows that Libyan Arabs belong to بني سليم and بني هلال. Under this title you can divide them to tribes which we called قبيلة after that ..... you know the rest. Actually you can back much further from بني سليم and بني هلال and find their common grandfather.
Back again to لقب, literally means nickname. Our family's names are more likely a nickname of one of our x grandfathers. Libyan family names really can't be a real person name. They are odd names. Some has a meaning like thunder, deaf, blind, drunken, elephant, white and blue etc... some doesn't hold any meaning. However, some people claim some families names hold a meaning in Imazighen language. Also there are very few family name refer to a city name or an occupation.
Shukran to Asma, Dima and Mohammed. Very kind of you.
to Dima:
in the poem " Identity Card " there is the phrase
أنا عربي
أنا اسم بلا لقب
So the term لقب is translated in European languages by "title" regarding this poem but on dictionaries like Langenscheidt (German/Arabic) this word means also family name!
in the Mawreed dictionary it is translated nickname, surname...title. Like Muhammed suggests
Well Arabic is apparently like an ocean with no borders!
@ Mohammed how do you call the tribes and the tribes name in Libya? Once I heard the term "beni" like the "beni Hassan " but I do not know how to write the term beni.
