Malaysia is a country which contains people of many ethnicities and cultures and the name of a person goes a long way in understanding his culture and background. Since, the National Registration Identity Cards were introduced in Malaysia, there has been a regulation put on Malay names.
Different ethnic groups have a different way of naming their children. The Malaysian Chinese use their family names along with the personal name. On the other hand, many groups have a common naming system in which a patronym name is added to the personal name. This system is followed by Malays, Bumiputera and Orang Asli.
Malay Names
Traditional Malay names are derived from one language or by combining elements of more than one language. A few examples of traditional Malaysian names for boys and girls derived from various languages are:
- Malay Language – Tuah, Mayang, Kiambang
- Sanskrit or Pali – Darma, Wira, Wati
- Siamese, Khmer or Cham – Lai, Som, Tam
- Javanese – Joyo, Ratnasari, Kesuma
Later with the advent of Islam, Arabic names were also used but they did not become much popular. Nowadays the traditional Malay names have also been confined to the rural areas. Also the National Registration Department in Malaysia forbids naming a child with names which have a negative meaning or mean name of a color, animal or anything natural. This has led to many traditional Malay names becoming illegal like Pendek(short), Puteh(white), Wulan(moon), Awan(cloud), Suria(sun), Rimau(tiger).
Structure of Malaysian names
Malaysian names generally consist of a personal name which is used to address the person and this is followed by a patronym. Malaysian names of boys and girls generally do not have family names of surnames attached to them. Instead malay boy names are followed by the patronym “bin” and malay girl names are followed by the patronym “binte”. Thus, if a man named Ahmed has a son named Osman, the name of the boy would be Osman Bin Ahmed. Similarly if Ahmed has a daughter named Razia, then the girl will be called Razia Bin Ahmed.
Though most Malaysians do not use surnames, there are a few families which use surnames like Wan, CHe, Tengku, Raja, Megat and are passed in a patrilineal way to the children.
Top Malaysian Baby Names and Their Meanings:
According to statistics, given below are the most popular Malay boy names and their meanings:
- Mohammed – The name of the prophet
- Adam – Man
- Ahmad – Praised
- Zikri – Remembering Allah
- Rayyan – Gate of Heaven
- Danish – Clever, Merciful
- Haziq – Skillful and Intelligent
- Daniel – God is the judge<
- Ashraff – Benevolent, Kind
- Aryan – Noble
The most popular Malay girl names and their meanings have been listed below:
- Nor – Light
- Sophia – Wisdom
- Zara – Flower, Princess
- Aishah – Woman
- Hannah – Favour, Grace
- Adelia – Noble kind
- Alya – Exalted
- Puteri – Princess
- Humaira – Red
- Khadijah – Early Child
Other than these names, there are many Malaysian names that have been derived from Chinese language and are popular among the Malaysian Chinese. These names usually contain three words like Tan Ai Lin, Foo Lee Lin etc. Also since Malaysia, is home to many Indians, these Malaysian Indians use the patronymic system and their names are usually a combination of their Indian names with some Malay word. On the other hand, Indonesians in Malaysia usually have Arabic names.
Thus Malaysian names have their roots in Malaysia but are also influenced from other cultures of the immigrants who have made Malaysia their home.
