Last name origin & meaning: Muslim and Jewish (Sephardic): from Arabic abū ‘father’,
in Muslim names used to form the ‘kunya’ (name meaning ‘father of’) in
combination with the name of a man’s child, usually his firstborn
son. Thus, a man might be addressed as Abū ̣Hasan
‘father of Hasan’ rather than by his personal name, say ‛Alī. In
traditional Muslim society, a man is generally known and addressed by
his kunya, rather than by his ism (his personal name), the use of
which can seem unduly familiar. Abū-Bakr, literally ‘father
of the Young Camel’ is the name by which Muhammad’s son-in-law, the
first of the ‘rightly guided’ khalifs (ruled 632–634) is
known. Abū-̣Tālib ‘father of the Seeker’ was an uncle of
the Prophet Muhammad. Abū-Fādl, ‘father of the Virtuous
one’ was the kunya of ‛Abbās, another uncle of the Prophet
Muhammad. A kunya may also be used to form a nickname, as in the case
of Abū-Turāb ‛Alī ‘Alī, father of dust’, a kunya of
Khalif Ali, the fourth of the ‘rightly guided’ khalifs, conferred on
him by the Prophet Muhammad.
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