"What is in a name?" Shakespeare says: the name does not make its bearer. If you carry a great or noble name, that does not mean you are great and noble—how many bottles of vinegar bear the label "choice aged wine."

Yet the name—however much we belittle it—is indispensable for distinguishing persons one from another: it is an instrument of designation and a tool of identification. From ancient times the name was used to describe a person or to bring out his origin and his distinguishing mark. Adam was so named because he was molded of dark-brown earth—the word 'adam' means dark, and 'adma' means a dark woman. Likewise Eve was called by this name

because she is the mother of every living thing, her name being derived from life. Cain: acquisition, or what is acquired; Esau: the thick of hair—and such indeed was the bearer of the name. The ancients strove to make the name a token of the named. Men's names among the Arabs were massive and grand, suggesting strength and violence, in harmony with their desert way of life, founded on raiding and horsemanship: Qahtan, Adnan, Ghatafan, Amir ibn Sa'sa'a, Hanzala, Qays ibn Darim, Quda'a, Aqil, Hammam. And they added the ta' for aggrandizement or amplification: Dabba, Mudrika, Bajila, Tabikha. The epithet served for description, for exaltation, or

for belittlement: Abbad al-Shatta', Antara al-Fawaris, Jadhima al-Waddah, Anf al-Naqa.

They sometimes named males after animals: Usama, "a proper name of the lion"; Haytham, "the eaglet"—just as Sab', Asad, Dhib, Fahd, and Nimr are used today.

Women's names, however, inclined more to delicacy, though they were not without vigor: Atika, Hafsa, Zaynab, Nu'm, Khawla, Asma (1), Lamis, etc...

Before Islam the Arabs used foreign names only rarely; we find, for example, the name "Ilyas" among the names of the tribes. But after Islam they took up in abundance the names of Hebrew origin that occur in the Koran: Yusuf, Ya'qub, Ayyub, Maryam, Ibrahim, Musa, Yahya, Isa, etc...

In the Abbasid age refinement spread in living—in dress and food, in titles and in names—and so slave girls were named after flowers and trees: Julnar, Rayhana, Narjis, Banafsaja, Zahr al-Ban, Khayzuran; after jewels and ornaments: Jumana, Marjana, Zumurrud, Almas, Yaqut, Fayruz; and after the stars: Suha, Suhayla, Badr al-Budur. Compound, ornamented names multiplied, like those we find in the Thousand and One Nights: Shams al-Nahar, Hayat al-Nufus, Sayf al-Muluk, Nur al-Din, Shajarat al-Durr.

Men were surnamed after their cities: al-Basri, al-Ani, al-Baghdadi, al-Isfahani, al-Ma'arri; or after their trades, as is the case today: al-Sayigh, al-Iskaf, al-Muzayyin, al-Nadim, al-Sabbagh, al-Katib, al-Jawhari, al-Aqqad, al-Jazzar, al-Nahhat, etc...

Women, however, were named after their fathers, even when they had husbands, or after the tribes from which they descended: Hind bint Utba, Asma bint Abi Bakr, Fatima al-Khath'amiyya, Layla al-Akhyaliyya, Layla al-Amiriyya, Wallada bint al-Mustakfi. And to some of them epithets clung: Azza al-Mayla', A'isha al-Rukuniyya. The Arab woman, as we see, preserved her personality better than the modern Frankish woman, who takes her husband's name and lets her own name and her family's name fall into oblivion.

Refinement in names remained widespread through the ages of decadence. And as the diminutive spread in the written style, it spread likewise in names; people used it as a token of endearment and familiarity, and in keeping with the taste of the age. The Lebanese of that age were perhaps of all people the most enamored of the diminutive in names and surnames. Hence we find this abundant number of names borne by Lebanese and Syrian families: Shakkour, Makhoul, Sghayyir, Mkhaybir, Abboud, Zuaytir, Ubayd, Suwayd, Shuqayr, Salloum, Rahim, Tannous, Frayj, Naoum, etc... They made diminutives even of names borrowed from the Franks: Maddul, diminutive of Madeleine; Hawun, diminutive of Helena; Marun, diminutive of Maryana or Maryam.

In our present age we have taken to imitating the Franks in names, as we imitate them in other things—a blind imitation that does not distinguish the lean from the fat. The Frankish names are for the most part Greek or Latin in origin, or Frankified Hebrew, or Gothic-Germanic. Their original meanings have been forgotten, so that they have become today so many names without meaning, used only because of their currency since olden times and their lightness and ease. Who remembers, for instance, that Philip, "Philippos," is a Greek name meaning "lover of horses"? And Alice, "truth"? And Alexander, "defender of men"? And George (Georgos), "plowman"? And Carl or Charles, "the strong, the big of body"? And Eugene, "the well-born"?

(1) The origin of this name is "Wasma'," from wasama, that is, comeliness; the waw was changed into a hamza. "Asma" occurs frequently in the old poetry.

And who thinks of the meanings of the following Hebrew names: Abraham, "father of many"; Rachel, "ewe"; Michael, "who is like God"?; Gabriel, "man of God"; Martha, "lady"; Mary, "bitter"; Joseph, "he adds"; Jacob, "he who supplants another"; Ishmael, "God has heard"; Isaac, "laughter," etc...

Borrowing names is not, in itself, an objectionable thing; all peoples have