Your Name in Arabic Script, With Checked Spellings

Arabic Vocabulary Lists > Your Name in Arabic

To write your name in Arabic, you spell its sounds with Arabic letters: Michael is مايكل (Maykel) and Emma is إيما (Eema). Type your name in the box below. 212 common English names come from a checked table. Any other name gets a rule-based estimate, marked as one, which a native speaker should check.

"Reads back as" is how an Arabic reader would sound out the spelling, in plain English letters. "Letter by letter" names each Arabic letter: ee is ي, oo is و and aa is ا.

212 English names in Arabic, and where each spelling comes from

Each spelling below is the one Arabic Wikipedia uses for a well-known person with that first name, so you can check it by opening that person's article. We pulled the article titles on 5 October 2026 and kept a name only when the Arabic article existed. Nobody typed these spellings by hand. Where the reading differs from the English name, Arabic is missing the sound: Peter comes out as Beeter because Arabic has no p.

Why does one name have more than one Arabic spelling?

No official rule fixes how an English name is spelled in Arabic, and Arabic script leaves out short vowels, so writers choose differently for the same sound. Arabic Wikipedia itself is not consistent. It writes Joseph as يوسف (Yusuf, the traditional Arabic form of the name) for Joseph Stalin, but as جوزيف (Jozef) for Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Hannah is حنة (Hanna) for Hannah Arendt and هانا (Hana) for Hannah Waddingham. Mia is مايا (Maya) for Mia Farrow and ميا (Meeya) for Mia Hamm.

It also works the other way. Arabic spells by sound, so several English spellings of one name end up as a single Arabic spelling:

• Steven and Stephen are both ستيفن (Steefen).
• Catherine, Katherine and Kathryn are all كاثرين (Katherin).
• Sean and Shawn are both شون (Shon).
• Daniel and Danielle are both دانيال (Danyal).
• Christine and Kristen are both كريستين (Kreesteen).

If you need one fixed spelling for a sign or a tattoo, use the table spelling and ask a native speaker from the country you care about whether they would write it the same way. We would not put an amber estimate on skin without that check.

English sounds Arabic does not have: p, v and hard g

Standard Arabic has no letter for p, v or a hard g, so names with those sounds take the nearest Arabic letter: b for p, f for v, and gh or j for g. Short vowels usually drop out of the spelling. Every example in this table is a spelling from the name list above.

Spellings with ج for a hard g, like لوجان for Logan, read correctly in Egyptian Arabic, where ج is pronounced as a hard g, and as Lojan almost everywhere else. For the sound of each letter on its own, see the letter forms and sounds on our Arabic alphabet chart.

How the converter spells names that are not in the table

A name outside the table goes through spelling rules that turn English letter patterns into Arabic letters, and the result is marked as an estimate. The rules handle the patterns that recur in the checked list: ph and v become ف, a silent final e makes the vowel before it long (Kate, Mike), a doubled letter is written once (Russell), and a final y becomes ي.

We tested the rules against the 212 checked names. They give exactly the Arabic Wikipedia spelling for 152 of them, 72%. Most of the other 60 differ by one letter: David comes out دافيد (Dafeed) where Wikipedia has ديفيد (Deefid), and Sophia comes out with س where Wikipedia has ص. The rules were tuned on these same names, so on a name they have never seen, expect them to do worse. Treat an amber result as a first draft.

A full name works word by word. Mary Smith gives the checked ماري (Mari) and an estimated سميث (Smeeth), and the result tells you which part is which. To go the other way, from Arabic script to Latin letters, use our Arabic to English transliteration tool. Family names follow their own logic in Arabic; our guide to Arabic last names and what they mean covers ibn, Abu and al-, and you will meet the same borrowed spellings on shop and law-firm signs in how to read Arabic business names.

Writing your name in Arabic by hand

Write from right to left and join each letter to the next, except after ا د ذ ر ز و (alif, dal, dhal, ra, zay, waw), which never join to the letter that follows. That is why مايكل (Maykel) has a small gap after the ا: the first two letters join, then the last three join. Copy the Arabic text from the converter rather than tracing a picture of it, so the joins stay right.

Each letter changes shape depending on where it sits in the word. Our printable Arabic letter worksheets give every letter's four forms with tracing rows, so you can practise the letters in your name one at a time. If writing your name is the first Arabic you have done and you want to know where to start next, the test of how well you read Arabic shows you which level to start from.

Frequently asked questions

How do I write my name in Arabic?

Spell the sounds of your name with Arabic letters, right to left. Type it into the converter on this page: 212 common English names come from a checked table, so Michael gives مايكل (Maykel) and Emma gives إيما (Eema). Any other name gets an estimate from spelling rules, labelled as one, which a native speaker should check.

Why does my name have different spellings in Arabic?

Because there is no official spelling for foreign names and Arabic script leaves out short vowels, so writers choose differently for the same sound. Arabic Wikipedia writes Hannah as حنة for Hannah Arendt and هانا for Hannah Waddingham. Different English spellings can also merge: Steven and Stephen are both ستيفن.

How do you write P and V in Arabic?

Arabic has no letter for either. P is written with ب (b) and V with ف (f), so Peter is بيتر, read Beeter, and Victoria is فكتوريا, read Fiktorya. Arabic speakers who know the name will still say it the English way.

Is there an Arabic version of my name?

Some names from the Bible have a traditional Arabic form. Joseph is Yusuf (يوسف) and Isaac is Ishaq (إسحاق), which is how Arabic Wikipedia names Joseph Stalin and Isaac Newton. Most English names have no Arabic equivalent and are simply spelled by sound.

Can I use this spelling for a tattoo?

The 212 table spellings are ones Arabic Wikipedia already uses for a well-known person, so they are safe as spellings. Estimates are not checked. Either way, have a native speaker look at the final design, and give the artist copied text rather than a traced image so the letters stay joined.

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