I have to say that for a while I was of the “you don’t have to change your name when you become Muslim” camp —which is technically true. You do not have to take on a “Muslim name” when you convert to Islam but my reasons expanded beyond this reality. My dad named his three eldest daughters African names because he was going through his “Afrocentric phase” as he puts it but he named his three youngest daughters all traditional Muslim names. Growing up despite knowing and loving the meaning of my name, “Light of the Religion” —I despised my name with a passion for the simply reason that it was constantly mispronounced. I dreaded every time roll call came around in school, I would witness in horror and embarrassment again and again my name being plundered. I can laugh at it now but back then it felt like the joke was on me. Never mind the fact that my name is pronounced exactly as it’s spelled —nu/rid/deen, they got it wrong almost every time. It felt like the world was making a big joke of me to the point that every time someone got my name right by chance I wanted to just jump for joy —Yes! That’s it! I would fantasize about having a common name like Lisa, and when I had to fix some errors on my birth certificate a few years back I was so tempted to change my name to that. If it wasn’t for my immense love and respect for my parents, I probably would have.
There’s another reason I was in the don’t change your name camp, I felt it was possibly a chance for dawa. If Johnathan Brown accepts Islam —as is the name of an actual white American scholar, it will signals to other white American —for example, that one can be a John Brown and be Muslim. That Islam is not this foreign entity ‘that those people over there in that culture’ practice, that it can enter the heart of anyone, from anywhere, with any name. That Islam is not about identifying with particular cultural norms but about being something that goes beyond time, space and identity.
My last reason was simply lineage and filial respect, the name your parents gave you points to a particular history, culture and moment in time that should be honored.
But, I recently listened to a lecture by Shaykha Umm Sahl and didn’t feel so sure of my position or at least not as sure that the benefit of keeping ones given name outweighs the benefit of obtaining a traditional Muslim one. I put “Muslim name” in quotes early on because it should be clearly said that a Muslim name does not equal an Arabic name as some may mistakenly believe. But rather a traditional Muslim name would be one that copies after the great sahaba, the awliya, the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, or a name like Abdullah or Amatullah that directly pronounce ones ‘muslimness’ as a servant of God. The value of these names is that they connect us as an Ummah. Arabic, though it may belong to a particular people, is the language of Islam. That language connects us not to Arabs but to our Lord and his messenger, peace and blessings be upon him. They also connect us back to great people and create in us desire to be like them and/or to embody the meaning of that name.
For this reason I believe there are good arguments to either keep your given name or change it to a traditional one. There certainly is no good reason to change a Muslim name to a simple one especially as an adult. It’s far less embarrassing for people to mispronounce Muhammad for example, than it is for a grown man to hide his religion by calling himself ‘Mo’ and Allah knows best.
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