Iraqi Onomastics Bleg
You know what would be great? A handy internet reference that identifies common Iraqi given names as “Sunni,” “Shiite” or “Ambiguous.” We know that death squads shoot people for having the wrong name. And we know that anyone quoted in a media story is going to be situated in Iraq’s ethnic/sectarian conflict, whether he or she wants to be or not. It would be useful to be able to see a name and know the speaker’s religious identity.
Comment by neil —
December 26, 2006 @ 10:27 am
Good question. Apparently in general, names do not belong to sects, but one way to tell is that anyone named after one of the 12 Shi’a Imams are usually “Shi’a names.” One Islamic message board informs us: “The only sunni names are Abu Bakr, Umar, uthman , khaled, waleed, Amr ibn ASSSSSS, marwaan, sufyan.”
Trackback by 'Aqoul —
December 30, 2006 @ 5:44 pm
In Iraq, how can one tell Sunnis from Shi’ites by their names?…
A few days ago, our colleague Jim Henley wrote the following post: Iraqi Onomastics Bleg You know what would be great? A handy internet reference that identifies common Iraqi given names as “Sunni,†“Shiite†or “Ambiguous.†We know that dea…
Comment by MSK —
December 30, 2006 @ 5:49 pm
Dear Jim,
in reply to this post I wrote a little piece on Aqoul, “In Iraq, how can one tell Sunnis from Shi’ites by their names?”
–MSK