Arab Name
ARAB NAME
In the Arab tradition—used by Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Arab world—a person's name contains his or her patrilineal genealogy. In other words, the person's given name is followed by that of his or her father and his father and his father, and so on. This list can often be ended with a family, tribal, or clan name or a nisba, a designation of the place the person is originally from. The ibn or bin (son of) or bint (daughter of) is part of this tradition. Palestinian political figure Hanan Ashrawi provides an example of the lineage revealed by the Arab name: "Hanan Daud Khalil Mikhail (Awwad)-Ashrawi is my personal and collective narrative. I am Tenderness, the daughter of David, who is the son of Khalil (Abraham) from the family of Michael (also the name of an ancestor), which is of the clan of Awwad (the one who inevitably returns), which is one of the original seven clans who are the descendants of the seven founding fathers of the town [of Ramallah]."