Re: naming after a Prophet, but the "English" form of it
my husband is non-desi and it was important both sides understood and could pronounce the name. jibraeel would have been too complex for his mainly non-english speaking family. heck, even in my family, it would have become jib-reel. my own name has been mispronounced so many times even though its a fairly common desi name, i just didn't want the kid to go through that.
For a moxed heritage person i can understand it, but for offspring of both desi person, i think its odd. I have a colleague who is muslim, desi but has a western name and he is often asked (even by westerners) why his name is western when he is a muslim and desi.
Re: naming after a Prophet, but the "English" form of it
i thought it was odd that my husband and devar both have western names, but when I went to Bangladesh, both of these names were pretty common. When I first met my husband, I thought he was a convert lol.
Re: naming after a Prophet, but the "English" form of it
When you choose a name, please think about how it sounds in the local language where you are living. It is all very fine for people to know you are Muslim (or not, for that matter), but in the example of the OP, Nuh just sounds like a name that kids are going to torture you child with in school. I knew a guy with the last name of Lund. A perfectly fine Swedish name, but not such a great name to visit Punjab with...
A lot of names have baggage, think about the baggage you'll be saddling your child with. Nobody names their kids Adolph anymore, do they? Name a child Osama in the USA? Not anymore, if you actually love your child.
Lots of people name their children a foreign language version of a name because they like the sound of it -- like you and Noah. It's ok. Noah is a Prophet, no matter how you pronounce it.
In the end, your child will come to signify that name for you, rather than the child become that prophet because you spell or say it this way or that way.
Re: naming after a Prophet, but the "English" form of it
i thought it was odd that my husband and devar both have western names, but when I went to Bangladesh, both of these names were pretty common. When I first met my husband, I thought he was a convert lol.
I'm part Bengali and loadsss of my extended family (inc in parents' generation) have western names.. a lot also have hindu names.. I think they just don't attach as much importance (in comparison to Pakistanis) to using 'proper' Muslim names..
Re: naming after a Prophet, but the “English” form of it
I wanted to name our eldest son “Adam”, but my husband said no, because it would not be pronounced “Aa-dum” in the Arabic/Urdu tradition, and it would seem like our kid had a gora name…I didn’t quite get that logic…
So we settled for Ammar…no problems in pronunciation there!
Our twins are Ibrahim & Jibran…again, no problems in pronunciation on either of those, mashallah!
Re: naming after a Prophet, but the “English” form of it
Jibran mean “reward”…
Both my parents were literary nuts…and huge fans of Khalil Jibran, they always said if they had a son, they’d name him that…since I don’t have any brothers, the name always floated around in our family…My sister wanted to name her son Jibran, but my bro-in-law picked something else..so when I found out that both twins were boys, I immediately picked Jibran, and my hubby begged me to allow him to name one of our kids so that’s where Ibrahim got his name from…lol!
Re: naming after a Prophet, but the "English" form of it
From what I understand, Aadam is the Arabic version of Adam, Nooh is the Arabic version of Noah, and we're referring to the same person. So should it really make a difference if we choose to name our child say Noah instead of Nooh?
Then you have so many urdu/Persian/Arabic names that have no religious significance whatsoever, would it be wrong to keep those names...such as Mehek and Meher and Qurat ul Ain and Mehvish and etc etc...
Re: naming after a Prophet, but the "English" form of it
I think one should keep the residing country in mind when naming the children, choose name that are easy to pronounce and have a good muslim meaning.
My cousin named his son "Yahya", I'm personally not a fan of the name because here it will be just like "Jaja" which means "yes yes" and I can imagine all the kids tease him when he grows up. Poor kiddo!
so that’s where Ibrahim got his name from…lol!