maclatunji:

I am getting your position now but you are getting it wrong by stating that using Muslim first names is losing your identity to Arabs. That would be correct if names as 'mac bin tunji' were pervasive amongst Yoruba people. Islam is a total concept and nothing identifies you as a Muslim more than your first name.

You see Muslims calling themselves Abubakar after Abu Bakr, have you seen any Muslim named Abu Jahl or Abu Lahab?

I still say you are insecure. Yes, use your traditional names but this your theory screams out that you are personally insecure about your religion.

I guess by your logic, Herbert Macaulay and Henry Carr stopped being Yoruba men because of their English names.

justaqad: Asalam Alaykum.

Islam is a religion not just to he Arabs but to the whole world,Simply by saying 'there is no god apart from God.

شَهِدَ اللّهُ أَنَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ وَالْمَلاَئِكَةُ وَأُوْلُواْ الْعِلْمِ قَآئِمَاً بِالْقِسْطِ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ

God bears witness that there is no other god besides Him, and so do the angels and those who possess knowledge."(Verse 3:18)

there is a trend among Muslims which i find not just disturbing but wrong.muslims are submitters to the will of Allah not to the will of Arabs.
we are loosing our identity to the Arabs.the essence of naming is for Identity.when i hear the name Chidi,i know he is Igbo by tribe.but it would be difficult to tell whether Gafar that resides in Oshodi is yoruba,igbo,hausa or Arab.
i fear we are loosing our cultural heritage to the Arabs.i beg to differ there is no such thing as Islamic name.i am not saying Arabic names are bad,but we ought not loose our identity.
i grew up with an Arabic name as my first name,whenever i say my first name,people start asking are you Hausa?it will take me me some seconds to introduce my self.i have since adopted my tribal name as my first,arabic second.
i am proud of my race,i am proud to be called Yoruba.i am not loosing it,not for anything.

Masalam

justaqad:

the name Barack is african,Obama is Afrcan American.
Husein aint his first name

justaqad:

the name Barack is african,Obama is Afrcan American.
Husein aint his first name

Umamman1: please when praying the Maghrib prayer today, be the imam and recite the holy Qura'an in yoruba so that we will know that you are really a culture man:you can go also go ahead and ask God why he revealed the Holy Quran in Arabic language.indeed there is nothing left out of Islam including how you go about relieving yourself in the toilet.

tpia@:


barack is a muslim name [mubarak] while obama should be african.

dont even know how to respond to the op question because it is weird. losing identity to the arabs because am bearing ibrahim? seriously. how does bearing ibrahim change my appearance to arab. no one has ever asked me if i was arab but are you a muslim question. op displays same ignorance as the americans who belief arab means muslim.

am hausa, and the only way to prove it is to speak hausa, simple, no need for long explanation. have you ever meet a real arab man speak yoruba? so y should people doubt whether u are yoruba or not when u can speak d yoruba lang. so when u speak yoruba, they still believe u are arab because of ypur first name? wonders shall never end.

u should ask y are the yoruba losing dia cultures to islam instead. do u have a problem with arabic or arabs? which one.

ayinba1:

You are kidding! Right?

Obama is Kenyan, Barack, a derivative of Mubarak,
Please, don't mislead people. His father was a muslim and that accounted for his names. Even though he is a Christian today, does his name imply that he has lost his American culture. Or does his Kenyan name grant him automatic Kenyan culture?

justaqad:

its African, so what? Husein isn't his first name

justaqad:

you are wrong.my actions and deeds should identify me as a muslim rather than my name.using arabic name as first name is loosing my identity.arabic name has no significance in me being a better muslim.



what makes you think i am insecure about my religion?i am not a default kinda muslim.the Quran clearly defines who a muslim is,a muslim is not one who bears arabic names.



at first they have lost their identity.ask any one that have not read or know them.first they will assume they are not africans.they have lost their identity.officially they stopped being yoruba.

justaqad:

http://hotword.dictionary.com/barack-obama-name/

tintingz:

Op go and ask bankole willington a.k.a banky w why him papa still dey bear wilington Or ask bukky wright

You may be right but there are no conclusive evidence that they are Yoruba/Nigerian either. They were returnee ex slaves via Sierra- Leone to NIgeria as missionaries. Most returnee ex slave immigrants tried a little too hard to ingratiate themselves with the "Locals" by making spurious claims about their identities/origins

donwilz: I am no muslim, but what you are saying in essence is the allah will not understand you when you speak in other languages, apart from arabic?. This is the height of ignorance and complex issues. The Op is spot on IMHO. This also applies to Christians! I don't get the logic in bearing alien names. I was laughed at in my high school days because i have no English name.. What happened to our pride ? God created all mankind equally. That is the beauty of diversity. Don't you ask yourselves , why God/Allah didn't make us all a single race? This is the beauty of his creation.. DIVERSITY.. Never forget your roots!

obo_man: Haven't you lost your identity in the first place by practising a religion that isn't yours, and originated from the Arabs?


Let's all return to the religion of our ancestors and modernise it.......



Our ancestors and the ancestors of the Arabs that wrote the Koran are both humans..........

maclatunji:

Dear child, I know you are confused but let me educate you. Barack is actually a shortened form of "Mubarak" which is very Arabic- It is not "African" at all in its roots. Can you say Olawale as Arab or Hebrew roots? Of course not!

Don't take my word for it, let us read together:

What do the words “Barack” and “Obama” literally mean?

We recently asked readers to suggest a name for us to research and write about. The name that received the most requests happens to belong to Barack Obama.

The 44th President of the United States is named after his father, who was a Kenyan economist. Barack is an African name meaning “blessed.” It is a form of both the Hebrew name Baruch and the Arabic name Mubarak, which also mean “blessed” and relate to the Arabic barakah. Another common spelling of the name is Barak.

There is no connection between Barack and “barrack,” which has both a different spelling and pronunciation. A barrack is a building or group of buildings that lodge soldiers. It comes from the French barraque and the Spanish barraca, which means “cabin or hut.”

Obama is an ancient Kenyan surname. The name is found frequently among the Luo, the third largest ethnic group in Kenya. It is believed that the name derived from the root word obam, which means “to lean or bend.”

Obama’s middle name Hussein is the first name of his paternal grandfather. The name, which is of Arabic origin, means “good” or “handsome one.”
Read more at http://hotword.dictionary.com/barack-obama-name/#ZiizpowyWsG77pR3.99

Note that the language, "Swahili" which prevalent in East Africa is heavily influenced by Arabic.

So my dear, Barak is not African at all by your presentation on this thread, it is adopted from Arabic.

tpia@:


barack is a muslim name [mubarak] while obama should be african.

justaqad:

you have a problem

Umamman1: please when praying the Maghrib prayer today, be the imam and recite the holy Qura'an in yoruba so that we will know that you are really a culture man:you can go also go ahead and ask God why he revealed the Holy Quran in Arabic language.indeed there is nothing left out of Islam including how you go about relieving yourself in the toilet.

maclatunji:

Even Christians know that Barack comes from Mubarak. Just like Bakare comes from Abu Bakr and his another form of Abubakar.

Really, you need to stop being insecure if you want to be a Muslim and be bold.

Are you in or out?
Double-crosser or devout?

-Apologies to Disney.

Anvaller:

Well.. I think u only need to approach this intellectually and not trying to insult him.. these are some of the potentially violent traits that the arabians have sold to us as a an attribute of Islam and we have unconsciously imbibed it. God revealed the holy Quran in arabic language because he brought a prophet up amongst them.. God would not have revealed the Quran in Latin if the prophet it was meant for was Arabian. At least the Torah and the Injeel were not revealed in Arabic were they? Or do u want to tell me that those 2 were not a revelation from God because it was not revealed in Arabic? We need to be more intelligent at the way look at these things and less dogmatic. If the Quran was only meant to be solely in Arabic, why are there several translations of it to other languages today? My fundamental knowledge of Islam is not because I know arabic but because I read translated text. I might have never been a muslim today if there are no translated copies of Quran for me to read. So what are u saying? The only thing that will compel ppl to continue to pray in arabic is because it has been structured that way in muslim community and not because it's a principal obligation from the perspective of Islam in the real sense.

justaqad: We recently asked readers to suggest a name for us to research and write about. The name that received the most requests happens to belong to Barack Obama.

The 44th President of the United States is named after his father, who was a Kenyan economist. Barack is an African name meaning “blessed.” It is a form of both the Hebrew name Baruch and the Arabic name Mubarak, which also mean “blessed” and relate to the Arabic barakah. Another common spelling of the name is Barak.

There is no connection between Barack and “barrack,” which has both a different spelling and pronunciation. A barrack is a building or group of buildings that lodge soldiers. It comes from the French barraque and the Spanish barraca, which means “cabin or hut.”

Obama is an ancient Kenyan surname. The name is found frequently among the Luo, the third largest ethnic group in Kenya. It is believed that the name derived from the root word obam, which means “to lean or bend.”

Obama’s middle name Hussein is the first name of his paternal grandfather. The name, which is of Arabic origin, means “good” or “handsome one.”
Read more at http://hotword.dictionary.com/barack-obama-name/#AfjJUWCMl3PDPYEi.99

maclatunji:

By your own presentation, Barack cannot be accepted as an African name. You have let the world know that you want absolutely nothing to do with Arabic when it comes to first names, and Barack just has Arabic written all over it.

#Hahahahaahahahaaaa.... #Laughwithme

lekibraky: Naming Forst have anything to do with Arabs nobody names their children Arabic names but Islamic names which the prophet endorsed that we should choose from the fine names of Allah if u don't wish to be called Islamic names suit urself but bear a good name because I shall be raised with the names u bear on the day of judgement

dnative:

go back and do more research and come and back and tell us how barack means mubarak.

most of them knew their origins [eg herbert macauley], but they could not settle there because the home environments were not conducive to their return. So they settled majorly in lagos.

lekibraky: Naming Forst have anything to do with Arabs nobody names their children Arabic names but Islamic names which the prophet endorsed that we should choose from the fine names of Allah if u don't wish to be called Islamic names suit urself but bear a good name because I shall be raised with the names u bear on the day of judgement