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We can use Allah's 99 names when naming babies. I have cleared my doubt by seeing this question: Is naming a person using one of Allah's names allowed?. Mostly Allah's 99 names are used in the names of boys, either prefixed with "Abd" or without "Al".

The meanings of Allah's names are unique, and He is neither male nor female. If this is so, my question is simple:

  1. Can we use those names for a baby girl also (with "Adb" or without "Al" or any other way)?

  2. Is it permissible in Islam (i.e halal or haram)?

  3. If you have any reference, you are warmly welcome.

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'Abd, as far as I know, is exclusively masculine; as such, it wouldn't make any sense to use it as a girl's name.

The female equivalent would be Amat, which use has dated back to the days of the sahabah (according to the scholars at Islamweb). Grammatically, it connects to the Name of Allah the same as 'Abd would:

  • 'Abdullah (عبد الله: male servant of Allah) => Amatullah (أمة الله: female servant of Allah)
  • 'Abdurrahman (عبد الرحمن: male servant of ar-Rahman) => Amaturrahman (أمة الرحمن: female servant of ar-Rahman)

As for the practice of dropping the prefix Al-, even though God Himself is neither male nor female the Names used to describe Him are using the male gender. So, again, using these as a girl's name would be odd.

In Arabic, the feminine suffix -ah can be added to create a female name from a masculine adjective; this can, I believe, be done for any of the unprefixed Names of Allah that would otherwise make a valid name. Muhammad's own foster-mother, for example, was named Halimah, which is the feminine form of Halim (forbearing). As far as I know she was named before the advent of Islam, so this doesn't necessarily mean that the name was actually derived from the Name of God (Al-Halim: The Forbearing) directly, but the naming of people by such common adjectives was a regular practice both before and after the time of Muhammad.

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  • Great answer.Though just to clarify, one can't use ANY name for a child without a prefix. Only specific names can be used without prefixes as those are common between humans and their creator. Allah created mercy and have reserved 99 parts of it to Himself, while distributing 1 part to the entire humanity! So the mercy of all mothers on Earth to their children is part of that one part, and all creation share that as well. In other words,we can name our children "Rahmah" (from mercy) for example, but we can't name them "Khaliq" (Creator) or "Jabbar" (Almighty) since these are specific to Allah
    – Private
    Jan 14, 2015 at 4:18
  • Also, please note, OP, you can't append -ah suffix to any name of Allah either. There are specific few that still mean the correct meaning without conflicting with Allah's names. And if you prefixed with "Abd/Abdu" (boys) or "Amatu" (girls), you can't at all append -ah to Allah's name. This will implicitly append gender to Allah SWT, rather than your precious child.
    – Private
    Jan 14, 2015 at 4:26
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    @Mars Only specific names can be used without prefixes True, but that's already addressed in the question referenced by OP (as well as the question I linked in mine own answer) so it's somewhat out of scope of this particular question.
    – goldPseudo
    Jan 14, 2015 at 4:30

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