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Warmest greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel. You asked for information on the Arabic feminine name <Khatera> and a possible byname meaning "the dancing girl. We were unable to find evidence that <Khatera> is a medieval Arabic name. The vowel 'e' is apparently not used in transliterating Arabic. We did find the modern masculine name <Khatir> [1]. The standard feminization of this name would be <Khatira> or <Khatirah>, pronounced \KHAA-teer-ah\, with the \kh\ pronounced like the hard, rasping \ch\ in Scottish <loch> or German <Bach>. We could not find a period example of this name either, but it is constructed in the same manner as some period Arabic feminine names. The verb root is <KH-T-R>, which means "to swing, wave, or brandish; to shake, tremble, or to vibrate; to walk with a (proud) swinging gait; to strut or parade haughtily". Unfortunately, if you are looking for a period Arabic Name this probably wouldn't qualify, it is however a modern Persian name. You also asked about descriptive bynames. Most Islamic women in our period were known either as their father's daughters (e.g. <Fatimah bint Khalid>, "Fatimah daughter of Khalid") or as their sons' mother (e.g. <Umm Khalid
Fatimah>, "Fatimah mother of Khalid"). Some women used descriptive bynames,
but this was not the common usage.
We could not find a byname specifically meaning "dancing girl". <la-Almeh>
is incorrect; the definite article in Arabic is <al>, not <la>, and we did
not find <almeh> in the Arabic dictionaries we consulted. We did find
<al-Raqqasah>, pronounced \ar-rah-KHAS-sah\, which means "the dancer" [2].
We believe this byname is appropriate for your persona.
You mentioned that you might be interested in a given name starting with a
<c>,<q>, or <k> sound. We found other period examples starting with a
\kah\
sound that might interest you: [3]
Khadijah
Qabijah
Qabul
Qaribah
I hope this letter has been of some help. If we can be of any more
assistance please write us again.
The research and commentary for this letter were contributed by Sion
Andreas, Da'ud ibn Auda, Arval D'Espas Nord and Livia Montgomery.
For the Academy of St. Gabriel
Naitan de Yerdeburc
[1] Hamid, Azieza, _The Book of Muslim Names_ (London: MELS, 1985).p.38
[2] English Arabic Dictionary Romanized", compiled by Edward E. Elias,
Third Edition, P. Shalom Pub. Inc., 1967. , p. 47.
[3] Da'ud ibn Auda, "A List of Arabic Women's Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996)
http://www.ital.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/arabicwomen.html