The meaning of kids' names

The tag on the meaning of one’s kids’ name (and the history of naming them) reached me over a month ago, courtesy of An, an old schoolmate… Sorry for the late response, ye An...

First, some background. Long before I was actually married, I thought that when the time comes, it would be cool if I could be given the right to name the boys and the father to name the girls. I wished to share my initials with my sons, and there were two names that really took my fancy – Azmi Hakimi and Azri Hafizi. No, I had never known any individuals with these two names, but I just thought they sounded cool, with nice meaning.

As it happened, I married someone with the initial MA. After some discussions, we finally agreed to share responsibility in choosing names for our kids, regardless of gender. The rule of thumb is simple – for a boy, the initials would be MAH, the M for Muhammad and a girl’s initial would be AH – as a combination of both parents initials.

1. Huzaifah

In the case of our first born, since we were expecting a girl, we thought of naming the baby Aliyah Hanani. (Aliyah – noble, Hanani – mercy). As it turned out, we got a boy – so the baby remained unnamed for a few days although I was fixed on naming him Azmi.

Why Azmi? Mainly to honor my Ayah, the same way he honored my late Tok Ayah by naming his first son after my Tok Ayah. Azmi (determination) is not Ayah’s formal name, but it is a name used by the family to refer to him.

Hubby had no problem with accepting the Azmi part – but was quite unsure about the Hakimi part. So he referred some kitab, and seeked his uncle (the current Mufti of Negeri Sembilan, who also graced our wedding by reading the khutbah nikah) for some help. Hubby presented three choices of names beginning with H – Hakim (wise), Haziq (intelligent) and Huzaifah – and his uncle quickly chose Huzaifah.

Huzaifah is taken after a sahabah’s name, Huzaifah Al-Yamani. He was one of the select few Rasulullah entrusted with the knowledge of identifying Munafiq. It was said that during his time as Muslim ruler, Saidina Umar would observe whether or not Huzaifah Al-Yamani attend one’s funeral, before deciding whether or not to lead the jenazah prayer for the deceased, as Huzaifah’s absence from a funeral was taken as a sign that the deceased was a Munafiq.

So we named our first son Muhammad Azmi Huzaifah, and I hope, like his namesake, he will grow up to be highly trustworthy too. I already know that he is highly determined －with his gambare spirit obvious…

2. Humaidi

There was no surprise with the gender of our second child. We had been expecting a boy all along, so hubby prepared a list of possible names.

The H part was easy – it was either Humaidi (of praise, commendable) or Husaini (after Saidina Hassan and Hussein, the grandchildren of Rasulullah). We both prefer Humaidi.

The A part was a bit tricky. Hubby thought Aqil (intelligent) would be nice – and so did most of our family members. But I thought Akif (one who iqtikaf in mosque) would be more appropriate to commemorate the fact that we were living in a mosque when he was born. Another point is that since we are in Japan, both the ‘ain and qaf pronunciation of Aqil would be lost when the name is written in katakana – it would end up being pronounced Akiru. However, Akif would not sustain much injury through its katakana pronunciation – Akifu. We even asked our visitors at the hospital as well as friends through emails for a vote – in which, to my delight, Akif eventually won. (Pokcik, who voted for Aqil said that I must had won by extortion, to which I smilingly replied, “tak guna paksaan… guna pujukan je”.)

So there, that’s how we end up naming our second son Muhammad Akif Humaidi