ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1396 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1396 ************************************ 21 Dec 1998 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for information about , which you want to use as a 14th to 16th century Arabic feminine name. Here is what we have found. or is a modern Arabic woman's name [1, 2, 3, 4], but we didn't find evidence that it was used in period. Records of period Arabic women's names are scarse, so we cannot say for certain that it wasn't used, but we would not recommend it. If you want to consider some Arabic names that we know were used in period, you can find a couple lists on our website: A List of Arabic Women's Names http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/arabicwomen.html Arabic Naming Practices And Period Names List http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/daud/arabic-naming/ You wrote that means "fairy of the moon". You didn't say where you found this word, so we can't say whether or not it is correct. We discovered that is the Persian word for "moon", and is one transliteration of a Persian word for "fairy". The same word could also be transliterated [5, 6]. (The colon represents a macron, i.e. an over-bar, on the that marks it as a long vowel.) We have no idea if these two words can be combined at all or if your combination is compatible with Persian grammar. We doubt that a Persian word could properly be combined with the Arabic word "the". Women in Arabic culture were almost always known either as their fathers' daughters or their sons' mothers. the daughter of and the mother of could have been called or . We know of a very few examples of period Arabic women whose names included a lakab or descriptive epithet. Because we don't have a great deal of evidence of period women's names, we can't say for certain how much less likely it was for a woman to use a lakab than for a man; but it does not appear to have been a very common practice. The four women's epithets that we have found are listed in the second article we mentioned above. The first of them, is probably a tribal name, "woman of Amir's tribe"; we do not know what the other three mean. Men's epithets tend to be fairly straightforward descriptions based on personal characteristics like "the fair", or place of birth like "the woman of Baghdad", or personal accomplishment like "the man who has gone on pilgrimage to Mecca", or perhaps occupation, like "the (female) dancer". We have not seen any period Arabic byname as fanciful as "the moon-fairy" and we don't recommend that you use that sort of name without similar period examples. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek, Devora bat Shimshon, Sion Andreas, and Da'ud ibn Auda. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 21 Dec 1998 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Schimmel, Annemarie, _Islamic Names_ (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989), p.44. [2] al-Ja'fari, Fatima Suzan, "Muslim Names" (Lagos, Nigeria: Islamic Publications Bureau, 1977, 1982), p. 24. [3] Hamid, Azieza, _The Book of Muslim Names_ (London: MELS, 1985), p.21. [4] M.A. Qazi, _What's in a Muslim Name_ (Lahore: Kazi Publications, 1978; South Elgin, IL: Library of Islam, 1995), p.53. [5] Lambton, A.K.S., _Persian Grammar_ (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988), p.50. [6] _The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), s.v. peri.