And so his name is Munief Ridhwan

It’s quite fun to do this tag (by Mardhiah12, thanks) actually. Biasalah – kalau dah namanya ibu (kebanyakan, mungkin tak semua) memang seronok kalau bercerita pasal anak.

MHH and I have agreed on a few criterias and patterns for our children’s names. How we arrive at this or who suggested what is a bit blur now, maybe because it was quite some time ago, and maybe because it doesn’t matter. Firstly, the names have to to have good meanings of course. Afterall, giving a good name is one of the first responsibilities of parents, and nama itu juga akan menjadi doa kerana akan kerap disebut diseru. And then, we thought that using two words in each name is okay, including the bin/binti, the full name would not be too long. And thirdly, we decided that the second of the two-words name would be a constant for all the kids. We weighed between having one constant for all, or one constant for each gender, and chose the latter. Fourthly, we decided to look for names with endings to rhyme with MHH’s name. I know I know - a bit trivial, but fun nevertheless, and it helps to narrow down the shortlisted names! Fifthly, the names shouldn’t be too common – we’d like to try avoid the more popular choices. Of course, these so-called ‘patterns’ are what we agreed today, we may very well decide to change them later for whatever reason (macam letak disclaimer or exit clause pulak rasa, isyh I’ve been drafting too many contracts heheh). Afterall, baru seorang yang dah diberi nama :)

When finding the constants (rule 3), it was quite easy to decide on the root word – which is redho. We both like the concept of redho both in terms of aspiring to achieve keredhoan Allah and us being humans learning to be redho with conditions (eg nikmat dan ujian). But redho in which form/i'rob? There’s several; for boys: Redho, Radhi, Ridhwan, Murtadha. We decided on Ridhwan. The i'rob of Ridhwan is similar to that of rahman, imran, jau'an etc, ie the root word redho (ro, dhod, alif ma’suroh) being used as a ‘strong’ adjective, or in short - very ‘redho’. Ridhwan is also the name of the malaikat yang menjaga pintu syurga. For girls: Radhiah, Ridhwanah, Mardhiyyah. We like Mardhiyyah best, so we decided on it even though it has a different i’rob than Ridhwan (Mardhiah12, this is before I got to know you hehe). Ridhwan is an adjective, but Mardhiyyah is a noun, the ‘done-to’, it means ‘yang diredhoi’. And then later, when we know that the baby (about 3 months before lahir) is a boy (pretty obvious from the ultrasound scans), we started calling him Ridhwan or Wan already.

The name to rhyme with MHH’s name (rule 4) was decided considerably much later, when Munief was about 10 days old! We had earlier compiled a list of such names from several sources; it was quite a long list (between 20 to 30 names), and there were quite a few that we liked so we couldn’t decide until last minute (kena register before 2 weeks). We chose Munief, which comes from the root word na’if (nun, hamzah, fa) which means exalted or berdarjat tinggi. It’s the same word as in Prince Naif’s name (Saudi’s current Interior Minister). But na’if sounds very similar to naïve, hence Munief. The i’rob is similar to that of muslim, mu’min, muhsin, mukhlis, etc ie to mean the one who is exalted. Strictly it should be Mun’ief but Munief is more commonly used (Munif Hijjaz comes to mind) and sounds nicer heheh. Personally, I’m glad it’s Munief because it starts with M (for Mynie) coincidentally :)

So when people ask: what does Munief Ridhwan means? I usually answer: the exalted one (atau berdarjat tinggi) who is redho. Oklah, habis cerita pasal nama. Doa kami semoga Munief Ridhwan (dan adik-adiknya, jika diperkenan oleh Al-Khaliq) diredhoi and meredhoi, InsyaAllah… Hmm nak tag siapa pula? Kalau lapang, nak minta my sister KakLong (Happy 5th Anniversary to you and AbangLong!) pula bercerita pasal nama anak-anaknya - my nieces Siti Arifah and Siti Aidah (pictured below), as well as UmmuAhmads, the Umm of two Ahmad (so far): Ahmad Muttaqi and Ahmad Syukri.