:sl: my fellow Brothers and Sisters!
I'm concerned about changing both my first and last names due to couple of reasons..my first name (mariam) means mother of Isa which is the Arabic version of Mary and my last/surname gets the nonmuslims suspicious especially whenever I fill out job applications. In other nonmuslim religions, my name means bitter lord of the sea and has another bitter meaning to it. I've heard that Islam allows us to keep our mother's first name from certain Pakistani people but am not sure. I feel my first name doesn't suit me at all because I'm always sad and depressed all the time and very fragile in getting hurt emotionally, I'm basically very sensitive and when there are happy times in my life, I'm just never happy from the heart. Not everybody can pronounce my name correctly even when I tell them how it's originally pronounced. My second cousin named her daughter the same name as me, it gets confusing all the time and I don't want to have the same two people under the same names in the family. I feel if I change my name, it will help me be more happier from the deep down bottom of my heart and possibly get me a job.
I always wanted to have a name that started with the letter A and have a very strong and unique meaning to it. I'm GOD gifted; I've searched for a few names, I came across
Malayeka and
Alesha but I want to choose a name wisely which is unique, not at all popular, very new and is very easy for nonmuslims to pronounce.
-1- can I change my name to a different letter from my original name or it can be the same letter as my real first name?
-2- whose sur/lastname can I change it to?
:wa: and JazakAllah