# Adam



## Beate

Hello,

does the word "Adam" has any meaning like "Hawa" which means "life" or "the living one"?

Thank you
Beate


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## WadiH

I think this question would be better answered in the Hebrew forum.


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## Abu Rashid

Why is that Wadi? Is it a Hebrew word?


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## WadiH

Yes, though the old Muslim exegesists did attempt to give it an Arab etymology relating to "darkness of skin".


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## Nunty

I don't know if these are _also_ Arabic words, but I can say for sure that they are Hebrew ones.


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## Beate

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Yes, though the old Muslim exegesists did attempt to give it an Arab etymology relating to "darkness of skin".


 

Hello,

I think this is due to the word "hama'in" which means "dark mud" and which is used several times in sura al higr.(15,26 for example).

I heard that the hebrew word "Adam" means "dust, earth, mud" but I was asking myself whether the arab word has the same meaning.

Thank you Beate


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## Qcumber

Adam : Hebrew אָדָם [?a:da:m], Arabic آدَم  [?a:dam].
Eve: Hebrew חַוָּה [Éava:h], Arabic حَوَّاء [Éawwa:?] / حَوَا [Éawa:].

The Hebrew names Adam and Eve (originally nouns) occur in Genesis and this text antedates the Qur2aan by hundreds of centuries. Besides they may even have been borrowed from earlier sources.
There are Jews and Christians named Adam or Eve. Are there Muslims who bear them?


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## WadiH

Qcumber said:


> The Hebrew names Adam and Eve (originally nouns) occur in Genesis and this text antedates the Qur2aan by hundreds of centuries. Besides they may even have been borrowed from earlier sources.
> There are Jews and Christians named Adam or Eve. Are there Muslims who bear them?


 
Muslims call Eve "7awwaa حواء". Adam is a common name among Muslims, but not 7awwaa.

In Arabic the root a-d-m is used in a similar fashion as in Hebrew (i.e. earth, dust, etc.), for example, the poet Abu al-Alaa Al Ma'arri says:
خفّف الوطأ ما أظنُّ أديم الأرض إلا من هذه الأجساد

However, it is also used to mean "skin".

I think the Muslim Quranic scholars interpreted the name "Adam" to mean "one who's skin is the color of the earth".  I don't know, however, if they only learned it from Hebrew, or if an Arabic cognate of Adam also existed before that.


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## MarcB

We have phrases that come from Adam.
ابن آدم son of Adam=man,human.آدمى human. تفاحة آدم   Adam's apple.


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## Qcumber

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Muslims call Eve "7awwaa حواء". Adam is a common name among Muslims, but not 7awwaa.


The forename Adam can't be that common among Muslims. At least, in lists of Muslim authors and public figures, I have never seen Adam so far.


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## WadiH

Qcumber said:


> The forename Adam can't be that common among Muslims. At least, in lists of Muslim authors and public figures, I have never seen Adam so far.


 
Depends on what you mean by common I suppose.  I hear it among African Muslims especially (Sudan, Somalia, etc.).


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## cherine

It's used in Egypt too, among both Muslims and Christians.

On the other hand, 7awwa2 is not a name I heard before.


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## Qcumber

Thanks a lot Wadi Hanifa and Cherine. This is quite new to me. Are there famous Muslims bearing the forename Adam?
P.S. By "common", I meant widely used.


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## Abu Rashid

Qcumber,



> The forename Adam can't be that common among Muslims.



Well it's most certainly not as famous as Ahmad, Muhammad etc. but it's certainly well used. I have two friends, both Muslim Arabs, who are named Adam, and the Muslim population of my country is not that great. Try searching on Google for names like "Adam Ibrahim", "Adam Ahmad" etc. and you'll find almost every Muslim surname comes up with matches for Adam as a first name.

In Islam it is encouraged to name children after all of the Prophets, and Adam is considered the first prophet to mankind. So for that reason it is used. I think you'd find Adam to be just as common amongst Muslims as say Musa (Arabic rendering of Moses).


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## HKK

It's quite possible that Adam is more popular in muslim minority countries, because it's not necessarily a muslim name. Which may help to avoid possible racism.

In Belgium, people who suspect some businesses of employing people of foreign ancestry purely to show off a progressive image, may refer to the victims of this (alleged) practice as "Alibi-Ali's". Names such as Ali, Mohammed, Saïd are more typically muslim than Adam.

ps: You may thus recognize an Arabist by his pronunciation of alibi-Ali as 3alibi-3ali


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## Qcumber

I'm pretty sure it would be very hard to find a Maghrebine Muslim named "Adam".


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## Qcumber

Abu Rashid said:


> In Islam it is encouraged to name children after all of the Prophets


Probably, but until recently a great many Muslim forenames were of the type "servant of God" 3abd-allaah, Allah being replaced titles such as wahaab (3ab-al-wahaab), etc.


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## WadiH

That's still the case. Bear in mind there are at least a billion Muslims in this world (at least nominally).


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## Abu Rashid

> Probably, but until recently a great many Muslim forenames were of the type "servant of God" 3abd-allaah, Allah being replaced titles such as wahaab (3ab-al-wahaab), etc.



Both "Servant of <God's titles>" and Prophet names have been used since the inception of Islam, right up until the present day. I fail to see when the "great shift" in naming practises occured, which you seem to be alluding to... care to enlighten us?


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## Abu Rashid

> I'm pretty sure it would be very hard to find a Maghrebine Muslim named "Adam".



Actually one of my two friends I mentioned in a previous post, who is named Adam, is half maghrebi, his mother being maghrebiyyah and his father falasteeni.

Again, I'm quite perplexed as to where you came up with this infomation about Muslim naming practises, as it just doesn't seem to have any relation whatsoever to reality.


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