Faris — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: ف-ر-س (f-r-s). The root turns on two things at once: faras, the horse, and farasa, the lion's breaking of its prey's neck. Fāris is the active participle — the horseman, the mounted one — and in usage the knight, carrying everything the word implies of skill, nerve and honour.

From the same root: faras (horse), fursān (knights, the plural of fāris), furūsiyya (horsemanship, and by extension chivalry — a whole genre of classical Arabic writing on riding, arms and conduct), firāsa (the discernment that reads a person at a glance), and iftirās (a predator's seizing of prey).

Note: Fāris is also the Arabic name of Persia, bilād Fāris, written with exactly the same letters. The two are unrelated in origin, and nothing in the given name points to the country.

Spellings: Faris, Fares, Feres, Faris (Turkish), Faris (Indonesian), Faris (Urdu), Fares (Levantine, French/Maghrebi), فارس.

Pronunciation: FĀ-ris, stress on the long first syllable; the final consonant is sīn, a plain unvoiced s, not a z.

Feminine counterpart: Fārisa exists in the language but is not in common use as a name.