I want a stealth Arabic name

[allhailtheaubergine]

We live in the ME, and I thought it would be nice to have an Arabic middle name to reflect that.

Dh says that would be impossibly naff.

So, what I need is a name that he thinks is a nice normal name, but secretly I know it has Arabic meaning or connection.

Oh, and it doesn't have to be too normal - we have fairly off the wall names for our kids, but it mustn't be obviously Arabic or dh will veto on naffness grounds.

Chaotica - agreed! Oh is a muslim and we always get stopped, searched and generally inconvenienced when going through US passport control..

Our children have quite traditional arabic middle names -Aisha and Omar but quite wacky first names, which we love.

OP - I love Danyal (arabic 'Daniel'), Sadie/Zadie and Safira, which I think fit the bill for you!

Leila or Layla ( anglicized spelling)

Girls are easy - there are tons of them:

Yasmine
Leena
Hanna
Nadine or Nadia
Amber
Mona
May or Maysa

... and a ton more. These are just the ones I can think of immediately.

Boys on the other hand? Hmmm, ...

My DH is Arab an we are planning our first. We both hope it's a girl as we'd really like a name that will work in either culture and Basil is already taken as it's BIL's name.

Also meant to add: my name is somewhere on this thread and I'm definitely not Arab, so it must be very stealthy indeed.

Rohan is more Ruadhán in Irish (pr ROO-awn).

lina?

mikhael?

My dd has Mariam as her middle name or you can lengthen it to Mariama. Amie (am-ee) is popular as is sairah (sirr-ah)

Mathanxiety - yes that's my sons name and pronunciation

my name is Zara. i'm boringly english. someone mentioned it means dawn, i think it can also mean flowers.
some lovely names on this thread.

This website has lots of names. Many ore duplicates and variations but hopefully you'll find something you can sneak past the OH.

www.behindthename.com/nmc/ara.php

My dd was born in Bahrain. Her middle name is Maryam. All our Bahraini friends called her Maryam. It's a beautiful name.

I like Zain, Ziad or Fares/Faris for a boy.

My DH's middle name is Kenneth and I'd considered

Kenzah

which I discovered means treasure in Arabic.

For a boy how about Sidiqi? (Friend)

Sid for short. Now THAT'S stealth!

rhubarbgarden Cyrus and Darius are Iranian/Farsi names, not Arabic, BIG political offense for the mix up there ;) Worse than telling a Welsh man they are actually English! They were ancient persian kings, the arabs came along and destroyed their ancient relics, tombs and treasures.

Rubbish about getting searched at airports -maybe it's the country of origin/passport nationality that makes him get searched. My dad gets searched all the time, and he has an Iranian passport. I have never been pulled out and searched, I travel a lot, have a British passport, and have a very obviously 'foreign' name

Also like Soraya for a girl - was the last Shah of Irans second wife (or something like that).

How about Dina?

Lots of boys' names here, from A to Z.

Scheherezadea your MN nick is inspiration for a possible Arabic middle name for the OP : "Scheherezade"! She was an ancient Persian queen who was the storyteller of the Thousand And One Nights which spawned children's stories such as Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves and Aladdin's Lamp.

I know a little boy called Nael - that's nice, and not too obviously arabic. Also spelt Nail.

Hanieh is nice for a girl.

I work with predominantly asian children and their names are mostly stunningly beautiful, and make me bitterly jealous that my blondies couldnt pull them off!

Amongst my female faves wud be Alishba, Aaliyah, Zaynah, Zoha, Taizah, or Hujaymah and Muskaan, (IMHO avoid Laiba, as its often mispelt )

Boys wud be Khalil, Kamil, Zaayan, Hassan or Zuhaib

Also, Ive never ever ever met a a Mahima that isnt stunningly cute/beautiful. It cant be a coincidence!

Also, I know its not middle eastern, but I worked with a 3 year old gambian boy last year called Yah-Yah....and boy was he every inch as cute as his name!

Yahya is a very popular Middle Eastern name, it's the name of a prophet. The English version is John :)

We also were in the ME when we had our son so chose Zane as it was the western spelling of the Arabic name. We got a great reaction to the name both from our families back home & from our colleagues/friends in the country where he was born.
Also, now that we've left the ME (& now live in yet another part of the world) people ask about our son's name & it's origin & it's nice that we can link it back to his birthplace IYSWIM. He will always have that connection whereever he lives in the world, so it's a lovely sentiment, OP.

Maya, Mayssa, May, Lyne

I am married to an Arab and whilst our son has a very obvious Arabic name we chose Lillia for our daughter, the Arabic form of Lily.