Muslim Names

[hoopmatrix]

Hi there, hope everyone is ok. Just looking for some info please!!?? My OH is muslim and I'm non-practising Christian. When discussing how we would name our children we struggled. He wanted Muslim names and I agreed if we could have English middle names. It took some time for him to accept this, but he did. We have DD who is 3 and another one on the way a boy. We had no trouble with out dd names. More tricky now. He now says we won't; have a middle name for our son as its not done for boys??!!! I said this isn't what we agreed before. The more he digs his heels in the more I dig mine in. Any thoughts please??? thanks x

'Half Muslim' ?

hoopmatrix please post on the relationship board, you will get lots of support and sympathy about the best way to communicate your feelings to your DP and they will help you find a way around the difficulties you are having at the moment.

Yeah realise I worded that wrong🙈 I meant his dad is Muslim and his mam Christian. I think OP got the gist of what I meant despite the poor wording.

thanks. Communication is not good right now. Thanks for all your ideas. x

Of course you must get to choose an English middle name for your DS, if that is what you agreed before having DCs. The baby is every bit as much your son as he is your DHs! Why on earth should DH get all the say?

As far as names go, I'm sure there are both Muslim names that blend well into the English language - and English names that blend well into the Muslim culture.

Zain is a good one - as has already been mentioned.

I'm sorry you aren't getting on in general OP. Is there anything you'd like to post about on the Relationships board? The advice there can be pretty good. Quite blunt at times, but usually good.

I'm Muslim and Islamic ally you can name your child anything as long as the name does not have a bad meaning. So you could potentially name your children with English names and it's absolutely fine from an Islamic point of you. Now culturally, that is different.

My English friend (married to a Muslim) named all her children with English names and he and his family use the Muslim version (think Joseph/Yusef, Isaac/Ishaq, Aaron/Harun).

I would put the name down, you've carried the baby for 9 months so you bloody well have the right to choose one of the names!

thanks. I will give the name more thought when I have the energy to start thinking about it again. Just feeling hopeless and disconnected from the whole thing right now. Meant to be a happy time, not feeling like this at all. Then feel guilty for not feeling happy ..........

My sister and her husband had the same situation. They used English middle names and Muslim first; but the first names are quite English sounding which I think they did on purpose. My nephew is Zane.

Sorry, I hadn't read all the posts before answering.

I see it's upsetting you that it's like he kind of went back on his word.

He could be facing some pressure from his family who may want the child to have a full Muslim name. That's not fair and I get that as a Muslim.

Maybe you could get the Arabic seeming Western? Like Aidan/Aydan/Aedan - Irish but Muslims use it too

Can you talk to him about it or is he not accepting?

Mikhail
Isaac
Yonas
Daniel
Yacob
Adam
Ilias/Elias
Xavier
Harris
Raffi
Raefe
Zayn/zane/zain
Ibrahim/Abraham
Ishmael
Isaac
Amir/Emir
Emile

Technically speaking, there's no such thing as a 'Muslim name'. Most names that are considered to be 'Muslim' are either Arabic names/words (that have a nice meaning) or Arabic variations of biblical names. Non-Muslim arabs also use them.

The names of some of the prophets revered by Muslims are not necessarily Arabic names either. Quite often you won't find the meaning of these names as they are not of Arabic origin.

And also don't fall for the whole crap about having to spell the name in a certain way to
Make it look more 'muslim'. It's a foreign name using an English alphabet, spell it how you want or how it's usually recognised.

@BrokenRainbow is right.

This is the tip of the iceberg. If you want your children to grown up as Muslim, then great.

But if you are bothered or may be bothered at a later date that they will be indoctrinated into following a religion, which lets face it, is made up, then you will face problems.

As will he if he is with someone who has a different point of view.

He also sounds quite controlling.

Leave now.

Abbas? Means "lion" in Arabic

So sorry I haven't read the full thread but my husband is a non-practising Muslim and I am Catholic. We looked at all sorts of names for our two boys; we now have an Ishmael and a Daniel. Middle names are Alexander and Joseph. I found boys' names much harder than girls' - especially as I wanted to make sure they worked with the surname. A few people commented that Ishmael should ideally have been Ismail but we just preferred the former spelling over the latter. Good luck.

Just read the whole thread. I had a lot of pressure from my dad, who is Iranian, when naming my boys. I stood my ground and they both have English names as I am not a practising Muslim and I grew up here so don't relate to my dads culture. I did compromise and my second child got the name Ali as a middle name, which my dad calls him by. My oldest son is called Leon and dad calls him Sher which means Persian Lion. I am fine with that, you have to pick your battles, and it is part of their heritage. However I then had to fight him on the circumcision issue, which I point blank refused to do. I feel for you, I can imagine how hard this is. It is a fact that he point blank refuses to compromise that is worrying. Is he like this with every aspect of your lives or just this issue?

Rohan
Adam
Aidan
Arun
Idris

My oh is muslim and all 3 of our children have islamic middle names and non-islamic first names.

You really need to start as you mean to go on if you are not happy with your children being fully submersed in the muslim faith. Don't forget they are 'half' your culture too!

Stand your ground. a middle name is not an unreasonable request and there is no reason for him to be creating such a problem.

I actually find it really sad that there is such a difference in how he views boys and girls, I don't think I could cope with that.

Muslim boys definitely get middle names. Indeed one I know went by Shiraz (middle name), his first name being the name of the prophet (avoiding writing it out because I'm unsure how unsual or not his name combo is).

Your husband is being an arse, I'm not surprised you're not getting on well at the moment, his attitude is rubbish.

Hari
Kiran
Zain
Aran

I had a Muslim friend a few years ago who went by Mo all through college (short for Mohammed) but later changed to his middle name Wahid. So I'm not sure where the Muslim boys don't have middle name thing comes from And as pointed out, baby is half your culture, which does have middle names. He needs to compromise on this.

All the prophets / Angel names are the same with different pronunciations! As in cover both Christian and Muslim. So Noah, Joseph, Jacob, Gabriel, Isaac etc.

The middle name thing is bollocks fwiw. My ex DH and BILs and friends all "proper" muslim, all have middle names.

So your DCs will all have a Muslim first name, anyway, which they'll probably be known by, as well as (presumably) a Muslim surname. And yet he is quibbling about an English middle name?

Why does he get to dictate everything, and why are you letting him? He sounds like a dick, and very controlling.

Lots of boys are called, for example, Mohammad Ali Khan. Mohammad is an honorific, a title. No one is actually called Mohammad. The second name Ali is actually their given name and what their family would use.

The same with names like Mohammad Waseem. Waseem is the first name.

HTH