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A short list of Amazigh personal names
By: D. MessaoudiA name constitutes a fingerprint which identifies the person who carries it; it is very often the form orthe resonance that characterises his name that tells us that an individual belongs to this or thatcommunity of people. In other words, we can guess that a person is of Russian, or Serbian, orRomanian, or Italian, or Hispanic, or Irish, or Scandinavian extraction thanks only to his name whichbegins or ends, respectively, with one of the f
ollowing affixes: “
-sky, -ev, -vic, -scu, -i, -
os, O’
-, -sen / -
son”, as in “Tchaikovsky, Milosevic, Ceausescu, Machiavelli, Carlos, O’Connor, Svennigsen.
 The Amazigh have originally their own names and forenames which differentiate them from otherpeople. Massnsen, Yaghmurasen, Wagguten, Mezian, Idir, are some examples. By abandoning theuse of their names and preferring the foreign ones, many Amazigh people lost a whole section oftheir identity. Nowadays, except those who know a lot about Berber history, people will never be ableto guess that Saint Augustine, Tariq Bnu Ziyyad, Ibnu Khaldun, etc, are Amazigh. Unlike these,names like
Yugurten 
,
Zilalsen 
,
Igerbucen 
,
Tamella 
, etc, refer all, by their sound and structure, to theAmazigh language and by extension to the Amazigh identity.Therefore, the new generations will have to re-acquire the original names of their forefathers and theAmazigh researchers will have to provide the registry office of the Amazigh regions with lists ofnames certified or created on the models of existent ones. I myself did a research work on the Berberonomastics and gathered then created a long list from which I took the ones I will expose hereafter.
My children, each time after a week’s or more struggle against the Algerian ad
ministration, doofficially carry Amazigh names:
Zeddgan 
(the pure),
Tamazgha 
(Berber land),
Tafrara 
(dawn).A/ Male:1.Aksil
: “cheetah” in Chaoui dialect.
 2.Amastan
: “the protector”. From the verb
mesten 
, which means
protect 
, in Touareg.3.Amayas
: “cheetah” in Touareg dialect.
 4.Amedras
: “which runs quickly” in Touareg. From the verb
dres 
, which means
run quickly 
.5.Baragsen
: “their pride” in Touareg. From the noun
abarag 
, which means
pride 
in this dialect.6.Iken
: “he is well
-
ordered”. From the verb
 
eken 
which means
to be well-organised 
in Touareg.7.Warmaksan
: “without enemy”. From the Amazigh
war 
, meaning
without 
,
amaksan 
, that means
which hates 
;
Ksen 
means
hate 
in Touareg.8.
Ẓ
dan
: “the delightful”. From the adjective
a 
ẓi 
dan 
which means
sweet 
,
delightful 
.9.Zilalsen
: “their peak / summit”. From the noun
azila 
, which means
climax 
, in Shleuh.10.Ziri
: “moonshine”. From the noun
tiziri 
/ 
taziri 
certified in several Amazigh dialects.11.Wagguten
: “the one who will proliferate”. From the particle
wa 
, meaning
that 
, and the participle
gguten 
, which means
being numerous 
. This type of participle without initial mark « ye / i » is commonin some dialects as Mozabit. The Kabyle dialect knows the verbs
ggwet 
and
suget 
, meaning
to be numerous 
/ 
to be productive 
.12.Wararni
: “without victor”, to understand
nobody can conquer him 
. From the particle
war 
, meaning
without 
, and the noun
arrni 
, which means
victor 
, in some Amazigh dialects such as Touareg.13.Yedder
: “he will be alive”. It is a commonly
-used forename among the Moroccan Amazigh; itcorresponds to the Kabyle Idir.14.Yeddes
: “he will be
well-
organized”. From the verb
ddes 
(=
eken 
) which means
organize 
inTouareg. The root of this term is known in Kabyle in the word
tiddas 
, which is a game where playersarrange the dices in different ways.15.Yimlul
: “he will be white”. From the verb
imlul 
which means
to be white 
. This forename means
to be in good health 
; remember Idir’s song where he says: « ad tizwiγ
e
ḍ
, ad timlule
ḍ
», because in theKabylian culture the white colour of the face indicates a good health, contrarily to yellow colour.
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