Hamza

Meaning and root

From ḥ-m-z (ح-م-ز), whose sense is sharpness and a pungent bite. In *Lisān al-ʿArab*, ḥamaza al-laban is milk turned sharp enough to sting the tongue, and the same is said of *nabīdh*. Of a person the lexicon gives *rajul ḥāmiz al-fuʾād* — keen and firm of heart — and aḥmaz al-aʿmāl, the most strenuous of deeds.

Also a herb

Ibn Manẓūr records al-ḥamza as a herb, on the authority of Abū Ḥanīfa, the botanical authority the lexicon quotes for plants. That places Ḥamza with ʿUthmān among names drawn from what grows and moves rather than from an abstract virtue.

The lexicon does not say 'lion'

Hamza is very often glossed in modern lists as *lion*. The dictionaries do not support it: the root gives pungency, sharpness and keenness of heart, and the one further sense recorded is the herb. The instructive comparison is with Ḥafṣa, also in this reference — that is the name the lexicographers do gloss as a lion's cub, in as many words. Ḥamza is not.

From taste to character

The move from a sensory quality to a quality of character is regular in Arabic: one root serves the food that stings and the man who presses on. That, and not the lion, is where the name's sense of vigour comes from.