Al-Saffar
An occupational family name from al-ṣufr, brass or copper: the ṣaffār is the coppersmith who works it into vessels. The same letters give ṣifr, empty, and ṣufra, yellow — words the family name does not carry.
- Type
- Occupational name
- Sense
- One who works copper or brass (ṣufr) into vessels; a coppersmith
- Root
- ṣ-f-r
The word
Al-Saffar (al-ṣaffār) is the faʿʿāl of ṣufr. Lisān al-ʿArab gives al-ṣufr as the metal of which vessels are made — copper or brass, the lexicon's gloss being al-nuḥās — and the ṣaffār as the man who works it. His were the pots, basins and ewers of a household, beaten and cast from the yellow metal.
Ṣufr, ṣifr and ṣufra
Ṣ-f-r is a crowded root. Al-ṣifr is empty — a house that is ṣifr has nothing in it, and the zero of reckoning takes its Arabic name from that sense. Al-ṣufra is yellow, and al-aṣfar the yellow one; the metal and the colour are near neighbours in the entry. Ṣafar is the month that follows al-Muḥarram, and al-ṣafīr is whistling. Of all these the family name carries one: al-Ṣaffār is the worker in ṣufr, and neither emptiness, nor colour, nor the month is in it.
Bearing the name
An occupational family name records what an ancestor did, as the name was applied to him — not a lineage. It attaches to no tribe, and two families bearing it need have no connection to one another beyond the word itself.
Sources
- ابن منظور، لسان العرب، 711هـ — مادة: صفر
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Last reviewed: 2026-09-17