A Persian or Iranian name is made up of a first name and then the last name of the family.

Sometimes more than one first name is given.  Many names are taken from Arabic, Greek, Assyrian and Armenian names.  About 10-15% of the names come from a Persian literature book known as Shahnameh which means Epic of the Kings. This book written in the 10th century is highly valued by Iranians and considered a masterpiece of Persian literature. Some examples of suggested first names in this book include Abtin, Ardeshir, Armeen, Arzhang, Babak, Bijan, Bizhan, Bozorgmehr, Darab, Esfandiar, Esfandyar, Faramarz, Farhad, Fariborz, Farshid and Farzad.

Before the use of surnames (family names), people were known by the district, city, town or village from where they came from.  Different beginnings and endings were put on the first names. Today, Persians use first and last names. Below is a list of common boys’ names, girls’ names and surnames.

Boys’ Names
Abbas · Abolfazl · Abdollah · Ahmad · Ali · Ali Reza · Amir · Arash · Ardeshir

Bijan

Dariush · Davoud

Ebrahim · Ehsan · Eskandar · Esmail

Farhad · Farshid

Ghasem

Habib · Hamed · Hashem · Hassan · Hossein

Jamshid · Javad

Kamran · Karim · Kazem · Kourosh

Mahmoud · Majid · Manuchehr · Masoud · Mehdi Meysam · Milad · Mohammad ·   Mohsen · Mostafa

Omid

Qaisar

Rahman · Rasoul · Reza

Saeed · Samir · Shahin

Vahid

Yaghoub · Yahya · Younes · Yousef

Girls’ Names

Anousheh · Astar · Azadeh

Farnaz · Farzaneh · Fatemeh · Fereshteh

Jaleh

Laleh  · Leila

Mahshid · Maryam · Mina

Nasrin · Nazanin · Niloufar

Parisa · Parvin

Reyhan · Roksaneh · Roya

Sara · Simin

Taraneh

Yasmin

Zahra · Zaynab

Common Surnames (Last names)

Abbasi · Abed · Akbari · Alizadeh

Ebrahimi · Esfahani

Ghorbani

Hosseini

Jafari · Jamshidi

Kazemi · Khadem · Khorasani

Madani · Mazandarani · Mohammadi · Mokri

Pahlavi · Paria

Rahimi · Rezaei

Salehi · Shirazi

Tehrani

Online Persian lessons for kids: dinolingo.com