Noor — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: ن-و-ر (n-w-r), "to give light". Nūr is light — and Arabic distinguishes it carefully from ḍiyāʾ: classical commentators note that the Qur'an calls the sun a ḍiyāʾ, a light that burns of itself, and the moon a nūr, a light that is given and reflected.

From the same root: anwār (lights), munīr (giving light — the Qur'an describes the moon as qamaran munīran, al-Furqan 25:61), manāra (a lighthouse, and the minaret), nār (fire — the same root, light and burning at once), tanwīr, and an-Nūr, one of the names of Allah. The twenty-fourth chapter carries the name, and in it the verse "Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth" (24:35), one of the most commented-upon verses in the Qur'an.

Spellings: Noor, Nur, Nour, Nour (French/Maghrebi), Nur (Turkish), Nur (Indonesian), Noor (Urdu), נור is unrelated, نور.

Pronunciation: NOOR, a single syllable with a long ū; not "noh-or".

In use: it is given to girls and boys both, and appears more often inside compounds than alone — Nurullah, Nur al-Huda, Nur al-Din, Nurjahan, Noor Fatima.

Masculine counterpart: Munir (منير); the feminine of that is Munira.