– Shaquille O’Neal: famous for his basketball stardom and rap career, O’Neal’s first name and middle name, Rashaun put together means “little warrior” in Arabic. – Ben Kingsley: famous for his academy award winning portrayal of Ghandi, his real name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji and his father is Kenyan and of Indian Muslim descent. Noor is among the Indian Muslim names meaning “brightness, radiance”, Damia is of Greek origin meaning “Goddess of the elements of nature”, Alya is Arabic for “exalted” and Alysha simply means “noble and kind”.Ī few other celebrities with surprisingly Muslim connections: The top five most popular Muslim girl names are Noor, Damia, Alya (we once had a rock star named Aaliyah who was killed in a plane crash in 2001), Alysha and Hannah. Rayan is Arabic for “gates of Heaven”, Ahmad originates from the Arabic hamida meaning “commendable” and in the Arabic context, Danish is actually among the popular Indian Muslim names meaning “clever, merciful, and foreseeing”. The top five most popular Muslim boy names are Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ahmad and Danish. Muslim Baby Names: Muslim Boy Names and Muslim Girl Names, Popular Muslim Names and Top Muslim Names Since the Quran was also written in the language, Arabic is still considered to be the original Islamic language to this day.

Muslim astronomers later picked up and adapted his work and began using those star Arabic names for their own folklore and now these names are also often used as Muslim baby names (ex. Claudius Ptolemy was an astronomer who charted the celestial positions of over 1,000 stars but his book wasn’t translated until the eighth or ninth century.

Muslim Names of Arabic Origin and Islamic NamesĪrabic names were likely in existence before the rise of Islam as those actually originate from star names used by residents of the Arabian Peninsula since at least Ptolemy’s time in the second century.