Arab family names

Origins, tribes, and history of Arab family names.

• Al-Shaykh

  A name from the word for an elder — in Lisān al-ʿArab the man in whom age has become plain. It later served as a form of address and as a title in several regis

• Al-Shehhi

  A family name (nisba) to al-Shiḥūḥ of the Musandam mountains at the mouth of the Gulf.

• Al-Shihri

  A family name (nisba) to Banī Shihr of the Sarāt in ʿAsīr — distinct from al-Shahrānī, and from al-Shiḥrī of the Hadhrami coast.

• Al-Shuwayki

  A family name (nisba) to al-Shuwayka, a diminutive of shawka, a thorn. Places of this name are found across the Arab lands, and the classical works this referen

• Al-Subaie

  A family name (nisba) attributed to the tribe of Subay'.

• Al-Suhaili

  A family name (nisba) to the Najdi tribe of al-Suhul; the like-written al-Suhayli is a separate name.

• Al-Sulami

  A family name (nisba) to Banū Sulaym of the Ḥijāz — and, differently vowelled, a distinct nisba to Banū Salima of the Anṣār.

• Al-Taghlibi

  A family name (nisba) to Taghlib ibn Wāʾil, the brother line of Bakr; in writing it must be kept apart from al-Thaʿlabī, from Thaʿlaba, and from al-Thaʿālibī —

• Al-Tahhan

  An occupational family name from ṭ-ḥ-n, the grinding of grain at the mill; it names the grinding, where al-Daqqaq names the flour that comes of it.

• Al-Tai

  A family name (nisba) to the tribe of Ṭayyiʾ — a form built against analogy, best known through Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī.

• Al-Taifi

  A family name (nisba) to al-Taif, the highland town of the Hijaz above Mecca. The tribal nisba al-Thaqafi points at the same country from the other direction, a

• Al-Tajir

  An occupational name from t-j-r: tijāra is the turning over of property in the hope of gain, and the tājir the man who buys and sells. Ibn Khaldūn treats trade

• Al-Tamimi

  A family-name (nisba) form indicating attribution to the Bani Tamim tribe.

• Al-Tanukhi

  A family name (nisba) to Tanūkh — which the sources treat as a confederation rather than a father, so the nisba names an alliance and a settling, not a single l

• Al-Taruti

  A family name (nisba) to Tarut, the island off the eastern coast that carries the anchorage of Darin.

• Al-Tawil

  A byname from ṭ-w-l. The root holds two branches in one entry: al-ṭūl, length in a body or a rope or a stretch of time, and al-ṭawl, capacity and the giving tha

• Al-Tawwash

  A family name that in Gulf usage means the pearl-merchant, the man who bought pearls from those who brought them up; the classical lexicon does not record the w

• Al-Taymi

  A family name (nisba) to an ancestor named Taym — Taym b. Murra of Quraysh, Taym of al-Ribāb with Tamīm, and the compound Taym names of Rabīʿa are all written t

• Al-Thaqafi

  A family name (nisba) attributed to the classical tribe of Thaqif of Taif.

• Al-Tihami

  A family name (nisba) to Tihama, the hot coastal lowland of the Red Sea. Tihama runs the length of that coast rather than forming one country, so the name does

• Al-Tubi

  A family name (nisba) to al-Tūbī, a locality of the Qaṭīf oasis whose own name is already in the shape of a nisba, so the two are written identically.

• Al-Tujibi

  A family name (nisba) to Tujīb, a section of al-Sakūn of Kinda named for a mother, and a form long at home in Egypt.

• Al-Udhri

  A family name (nisba) to ʿUdhra of Quḍāʿah, north of Medina — and, in a use that is not a family name at all, the adjective ʿudhrī of the classical love poetry.

• Al-Umawi

  A family name (nisba) to Banū Umayya, a clan of Quraysh as the genealogists record it; a separate Banū Umayya among the Aws of Medina carries the same written f

• Al-Uqayli

  A family name (nisba) to ʿUqayl ibn Kaʿb of ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, and separately to the personal name ʿAqīl; in writing it is also confused with al-ʿUqayl, which i

• Al-Uqayri

  A family name (nisba) to al-Uqayr, the landing on the eastern coast that served the inland oasis of al-Ahsa. The name is a diminutive on a very ordinary root.

• Al-Uwali

  A family name (nisba) to Awal, the island the geographers name in the sea off eastern Arabia. It points to the island, not to al-Bahrayn the historic region, wh

• Al-Wadii

  A family name (nisba) to Wādiʿah of Hamdān in Yemen — one vowel away in writing from Wadāʿah, a separate name that this reference keeps on its own page.

• Al-Wadii (of Wadia)

  A nisba to Wadīʿa, the stem within ʿAbd al-Qays under which the genealogists enter several sections of the al-Qaṭīf coast. It is one letter from al-Wādiʿī of Wā

• Al-Waili

  The nisba to Wāʾil, the ancestor from whom the genealogists name Bakr ibn Wāʾil and Taghlib ibn Wāʾil. It is also built on the ordinary given name Wāʾil and on

• Al-Yafei

  A family name (nisba) to Yafi' of southern Yemen, borne by classical scholars and widespread in Yemen and the Gulf.

• Al-Yamani

  A family name (nisba) to al-Yaman, which the classical geographers carry much further north than the modern state. The word is also used in the genealogical boo

• Al-Yami

  A family name (nisba) attributed to the tribe of Yam of the Najran region.

• Al-Yarbui

  A family name (nisba) to Banū Yarbūʿ of Ḥanẓala of Tamīm; yarbūʿ is also the desert jerboa and an ordinary personal name, so the form arises in more than one wa

• Al-Zahrani

  A family-name (nisba) form indicating attribution to the Zahran tribe.

• Al-Zari

  A family name (nisba) to al-Zāra, a village of this coast that Yāqūt does describe — palms, and a garrison posted there before Islam. More than one place carrie

• Al-Zubaidi

  One spelling for two separate nisbas: to Zubayd, a Madhhiji tribe, and to Zabid, the town of the Yemeni Tihama.

• Al-Zuhri

  A family name (nisba) attributed to Banū Zuhra b. Kilāb of Quraysh; al-Zahrānī, al-Azharī and al-Zuhayrī are different names built on different ancestors.