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Updated March 5, 2024

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Family name origins & meanings

  • Muslim : from an Arabic personal name, ̣Sallạ̄h ud-Dīn ‘righteousness of religion’. This was the title adopted by Yusuf ibn-Ayyub, sultan of Egypt (1138–93), known to the western world as Saladin, who opposed, for the most part successfully, the Crusades undertaken by Richard I of England and Philip II of France. This name is widespread throughout the Muslim world.
  • French : nickname for a blustering or tyrannical individual, from the name of the medieval Egyptian sultan (see 1 above), who, because of his success in combating the Crusaders, became demonized in French and Italian folklore as a monster second only to Herod.

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