A semantic analysis of personal names in English and Arabic

الملخص EN

The present study is concerned with introducing a meaning-based analysis of personal names (PNs) in Standard English (SE) and Standard Arabic i(SA).

It is based on the hypothesis that in both languages surnames are roughly derived from the same sources.

Thus, the study is limited to the investigation of personal names including surnames.

The paper is divided into two parts: the first sheds light upon the meaning of proper names in English and their relationship with definiteness, origin of surnames and ambiguity of proper names.

The second part deals with PNs in Arabic, the way they are coined their categorizations into different classes and on what bases surnames are derived.

The results of the study have validated the hypothesis of the work.