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1170828/03/2010

Ruling on giving a child an Amazigh (Berber) name

Question: 146398

I am Amazigh and I want to give my son an Amazigh name. What is the shar‘i ruling on that?.

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

There is nothing wrong with giving your son an Amazigh
name, because the basic ruling concerning names is that they are
permissible, so long as they do not imply worship of anything other than
Allah, may He be exalted – i.e., they are not names like “ ‘Abd” plus the
name of some created being – and they are not names that are exclusive to
the kuffaar. 

But you should choose a good name for your son, because this
is one of the rights that he has over you. 

Al-Maawardi (may Allah have mercy on him) said in his book
Naseehat al-Mulook (p. 167): When a child is born, one of the first ways
of honouring him and treating him kindly is to give him a good name, because
a good name has an effect on the soul when first hearing it. 

With regard to what is mustahabb when it comes to names, he
said: It (the name) should be a good name and be appropriate to the
situation of the child; it should be in accordance with the names of the
people of his background, religion and status. End quote. 

There is nothing wrong with giving the child names that are
common among your people and tribe, so long as you choose names that have a
good meaning, because names have meanings and have an impact on the people
to whom they are given. 

If you pay attention to names that are used only by Muslims
or names that have an Islamic significance, that will be better. The same
applies to choosing Arabic names, because of the strong connection between
Arabic and Islam. 

See also questions no.
14626 and
7180

And Allah knows best.

Source

Islam Q&A

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