Curious Names: Saʻd and Saʻīd
By Basil Dragonstrike
In your readings of Arabic matters, you may have come across the
names Saʻd and Saʻīd, and wondered if these are
different romanizations of the same underlying name.
They are not.
These two are distinct names in Arabic. For example, in Kitāb
Futūḥ al-Buldān by Abū al-ʻAbbās Aḥmad ibn Jābir
al-Balādhurī (translated as The Origins of the Islamic
State, by Phlip Hitti), in chapter VII "The Wells of Makkah"
there is reference to:
Saʻīd ibn Saʻd ibn Sahm
Obviously, a single source is not going to romanize the same name in
two different ways (unless, of course, it's quoting another writer,
which isn't the situation here).
Lane's Lexicon (An Arabic-English Lexicon: Derived from the Best
and the Most Copious Eastern Sources....) volume 4, page
1361ff (the pages are numbered consecutively thoughout the 8 volume
work), under سعد has both Saʻd and
Saʻīd as meaning the same thing; "prosperous, fortunate,
happy, or in a state of felicity". However, there is no question
they are distinct and separate words. Keep in mind that a
considerable fraction of Muslim names come directly from Arabic
vocabulary; note this is not to say "that's its meaning"; to the
onomast, the meaning of any name is "that person over there". The
idea that a name has some "meaning" based on its origin/derivation
is dismissed by serious onomasts.
It might be asked if Saʻīd is a diminutive of Saʻd
(or possibly the other way round). I do not believe so. Note that in
the above-cited article, Lane repeats a part of a story about "the
two sons of Ḍabbeh [sic] the son of Udd" who were named Saʻd
and Suʻayd. The latter is the diminutive form of the word Saʻd;
Lane says some sources erroneously wrote Suʻayd as Saʻīd.
However, this doesn't mean that Saʻīd is always a mistake
for Suʻayd; Saʻīd is found far too often to be an
error every time. That being so, clearly Saʻīd is not
the diminutive of Saʻd.
In short, Saʻd and Saʻīd are separate words; their
"meanings" are very similar, but neither is a diminutive of the
other.
Return to "Curious Names"
Bibliography:
The Origins of the Islamic State, transated by Phlip Hitti,
Columbia University Press, 1916
An Arabic-English Lexicon: Derived from the Best and the Most
Copious Eastern Sources.... by Edward William Lane, Williams
and Norgate, 1872