Persian names: 130+ Iranian female and male names with meanings

In Iran's registry figures for the year 1399 (March 2020 to March 2021), Amir Ali, Mohammad and Ali led the boys' list and Fatemeh, Zahra and Rasta led the girls', according to the National Organization for Civil Registration. Many top names are Persian forms of Arabic names.

Persian names come from the Persian language and Iran's own history, like Dariush or Kamran. Arabic names arrived with Islam and are just as common in Iran today, often with a Persian spelling, like Fatemeh for Fatima.

They are names of heroes, kings and queens in the Shahnameh, the Book of Kings that the poet Ferdowsi finished in 1010. Sohrab, Tahmineh, Zal and Rudabeh are favorites, and Iranians still give them to children.

Lovely Persian female names include Nazanin (sweetheart), Ziba (beautiful), Taraneh (song) and Arezou (wish). Classic Persian male names include Kamran (successful), Behrouz (fortunate) and Bahman (good mind).

Their meanings are uncertain. Scholars propose several origins for Rostam, Kourosh (Cyrus), Kaveh, Arash and Shahrzad, so we list only names with an accepted meaning.

Yes. Cyrus is the Latin form of the Greek Kyros, from the Old Persian Kurush, the name of Cyrus the Great. Its meaning is uncertain, which is why it is not in our list, but it was No. 268 for US boys in 2025. Its modern Persian form is Kourosh.

Descendant of. Iranian surnames, which have only been in use since a 1919 act, often end in -zadeh, -pour or -nejad, all marking descent, or in -i, meaning of, as in Tehrani, from Tehran.