Boy · Arabic · Muslim
Sufyan
سفیانSay it suf-YAAN
- Meaning today
- Fast-moving, one who walks swiftly
- In the dictionaries
- No dictionary meaning confirmed for the name itself
- Say it
- suf-YAAN
- Written
- سفیان
- Other spellings
- Sufiyan, Sofian
Sufyan
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Sufyan meaning
Sufyan (سفیان) is a Muslim boy's name of Arabic origin.
Meaning today
Fast-moving, one who walks swiftly
In the dictionaries
We haven't confirmed a dictionary meaning for the name itself. The meaning above is how families commonly use it.
Sufyan (سفیان) is a classical Arabic name with a long history in early Islam. On name lists today it is usually given as "fast-moving" or "one who walks swiftly". Those are meanings families use today. The Arabic dictionaries we checked, including Lane's Lexicon, do not record the name or tie it to a particular word, so we give no dictionary meaning. Several companions of the Prophet bore the name, and so did Sufyān al-Thawrī (died 778), the Kufan scholar of hadith and law who founded the Thawri school. The name is also familiar from Abū Sufyān, head of the Umayyad clan of Mecca and father of the caliph Muʿāwiyah, whose by-name means "father of Sufyān". The word does not occur in the Quran.
References: Wikipedia, Sufyan al-Thawri · Britannica, Abū Sufyān · Britannica, Muʿāwiyah I · IslamQA.org (Arij Canada), on choosing the name Sufyan
Famous namesakes
- Sufyān al-Thawrī (died 778), scholar of hadith and law in Kufa
Popularity abroad
- #771 England and Wales, boys 2025
Office for National Statistics
Official birth registrations. India publishes no national name statistics.
Spellings
Sufyan · Sufiyan · Sofian