10 Rules Behind the Yoruba Adaptation of Arabic Names

I have long been fascinated by how Yoruba speakers transform Arabic names into forms that sound native. Four key patterns emerge: every borrowed name gains a terminal vowel; initial vowels are often dropped; the “a” sound frequently shifts to “o”; and many names lose the “Abdul” prefix. These patterns appear in names like Bakare (Abubakar), Buraimo (Ibrahim), Disu (Idris), Lamidi (Abdulhamid), Muroino (Imran), Lasisi (Abdulaziz), Romonu (Abdulrahman), Sulu (Zulkarnain), Sumonu (Usman), and Sunmola (Ismaeel). This creative process shows how Yoruba morphology reshapes foreign names into distinctly local forms.

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