Moroccan Name Generator

Moroccan names are Arabic names with a distinctly Moroccan look, because they are written using French spelling conventions rather than English ones. Where an English text writes Yusuf, Aisha and Zaynab, Moroccans write Youssef, Aicha and Zineb; Muhammad becomes Mohammed or M'hamed, Rashid becomes Rachid, and the ou spelling stands in for a w or u sound (Oumaima, Soufiane, Noureddine). Names built on Abd (servant of) plus a divine attribute are extremely common for men and are written as one word: Abdelaziz, Abdelkader, Abderrahim, Abdessalam. Fatima Zahra, Fatima Ezzahra, Nour El Houda and Salma are among the most popular names for girls.

Surnames often reveal a family's roots. El Fassi means from Fez, El Marrakchi from Marrakesh, Filali from Tafilalt, and Andalusian families expelled from Spain in the 1400s carry names like Benjelloun, Bennani, Berrada, Chraibi and Tazi. Alaoui and Idrissi indicate descent from the ruling sharifian dynasties, and the honorifics Moulay (for men) and Lalla (for women) mark royal or saintly lineage. Roughly a third of Moroccans are Amazigh (Berber), and Amazigh surnames beginning with Ait (people of), Ou (son of) or Ben are common in the Atlas and Souss: Ait Benhaddou, Ouazzani, Ait Lahcen. Revived Amazigh given names such as Idir, Massinissa, Tinhinan, Tilelli and Yuba have become fashionable since the 2000s.

Morocco also had a large Sephardic Jewish community, remembered in surnames like Toledano, Elmaleh, Ohana and Bensimon. This list combines all of these strands with authentic Moroccan spellings so a name reads as Moroccan rather than generically Arabic.