Dalia — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: د-ل-و (d-l-w), "to let down a bucket, to draw water". Dāliya (دالية) in classical Arabic is a grapevine trained up over a trellis, and also the wheel or beam that lifts water to irrigate it — the same word for the vine and for what waters it.

From the same root: dalw (a bucket; also the zodiac sign Aquarius), adlā (to lower — the Qur'an uses it of the traveller at the well in the account of Yusuf, fa-adlā dalwahu, "and he let down his bucket", 12:19), idlāʾ, tadallā.

Spellings: Dalia, Daliya, Dalya, Dahlia, Dalya (Turkish), Dalia (Indonesian), داليا / دالية.

Pronunciation: DAA-li-ya, three syllables, stress on the first.

Note on the flower: the garden dahlia is a separate word with a documented and quite recent history — it was named in Europe after the botanist Anders Dahl, and reached Arabic as a loan. So the two senses of this name, the Arabic vine and the European flower, arrived by different routes and only look like one word. There is also a Hebrew Dalia, "a hanging branch", from a related Semitic root. A reader who wants the Arabic sense should know it is the vine, not the flower.

Masculine counterpart: none in use.