Iranian Last Names: Common Surnames, Meanings and How They Are Built

The most common Iranian last names include Mohammadi محمدی, Hosseini حسینی, Ahmadi احمدی and Rezaei رضایی. Most are built the same way: a first name, a place or a job plus the ending -i, which means “of” or “from”. So Mohammadi is “of Mohammad” and Tehrani is “from Tehran”.

Once you know a handful of endings (-i, -zâde, -pur, -niyâ, -far, -nezhâd, -lu, -vand), you can read the story inside almost any Iranian surname. This guide gives each name in Persian script with its pronunciation, the usual English spellings and a meaning only where the meaning is clear.

How to say “last name” in Persian

The formal word for surname is نام خانوادگی (nâm-e khânevâdegi), literally “family name”. It is the word you will see on forms and on the Iranian ID booklet, the شناسنامه (shenâsnâme). In everyday speech, Iranians simply say فامیلی (fâmili). Listen

Iranians use surnames a lot in polite address. A teacher, doctor or colleague is often called آقای کریمی (âghâ-ye karimi, Mr. Karimi) or خانم احمدی (khânom-e ahmadi, Ms. Ahmadi). Notice the ezâfe -ye / -e that links the title to the name; our guide to the ezafe in Persian explains it. For more on giving your own name, see how to introduce yourself in Persian.

A short history: why Iranian surnames are so young

Until the early twentieth century, most Iranians did not have a fixed family name. People were known by a first name plus something that told others who they were: a father’s name, a hometown, a job or a title. A man might be known as Hasan the carpenter, or as Ali from Kashan.

That changed when Iran set up a modern civil registration system. Registration of births with ID booklets began around 1919, and a civil registration law passed in the mid-1920s made a family name compulsory for every citizen. Reza Khan, who soon became Reza Shah, chose the surname Pahlavi for his own family.

Because almost every family had to pick a name at around the same time, people reached for whatever described them best. That is why so many Iranian surnames are so transparent: they still say “son of Hasan”, “from Shiraz” or “the goldsmith”. It also explains why unrelated families can share the same name. Two Karimi families need not be related at all; both may simply have had a grandfather called Karim.

The ending -i: “of” or “from”

The single most common pattern is a word plus ی (-i). This ending turns a noun into an adjective meaning “of”, “related to” or “from”. It is the same ending you see in everyday words such as ایرانی (irâni, Iranian) or شیرازی (shirâzi, from Shiraz).

Surnames from first names

Many of the most common surnames in Iran come from a forefather’s first name. A large share of these first names are Arabic-origin names honoring the Prophet and the Shia Imams, which is why they are so widespread.

Listen to a few of them: Mohammadi Listen Hosseini Listen Rezaei Listen Mousavi Listen

Names such as Hosseini, Mousavi, Hashemi and Tabatabaei طباطبایی (tabâtabâyi) are often carried by families who are سید (seyyed), that is, who trace their line back to the Prophet. That is a tendency, not a rule: plenty of Hosseinis are not seyyed. Not every name in this group is Arabic, either. Surnames such as Rostami, Bahrami بهرامی (bahrâmi) and Esfandiari اسفندیاری (esfandiyâri) come from old Iranian names, many of them famous from the Shahnameh. If you like these, our list of Persian baby names has the first names behind many of them.

Surnames from places

The second big group tells you where the family came from. Add -i to a city, a town or even a village and you have a surname.

Listen: Tehrani Listen Esfahani Listen Tabrizi Listen

A place name does not mean the family still lives there. A Shirazi family may have been in Tehran for a hundred years; the name only records where an ancestor came from when surnames were registered.

Surnames from jobs

Some families took the name of a forefather’s trade. These names are easy to decode once you know the job words, and our list of jobs in Persian will help you spot more of them.

These also appear with -i: Zargari زرگری, Dehghani دهقانی, Najjari. The famous poet Omar Khayyam’s name خیام is usually explained the same way, as “tent-maker”. Listen: Ahangar Listen Zargar Listen

Other endings and what they mean

Beyond -i, a few endings and prefixes do most of the work. Each one is a real Persian word or suffix with its own meaning.

Listen: Hassanzadeh Listen Alipour Listen Shamlou Listen

Endings can stack. Ahmadinejad is Ahmad + -i + -nezhâd; Karimifar is Karim + -i + -far. Read them from the inside out: first name, then “of”, then the extra ending.

The -iyân ending is also very typical of Armenian surnames, so a name ending in -ian may belong to an Armenian-Iranian family as well as a Persian-speaking one.

Spelling Iranian last names in English

There is no single official way to write Persian names in the Latin alphabet, so the same surname often appears in several forms, even within one family. Passports, school records and immigration papers were each typed by different people. These are the usual sources of variation:

• ou or u, ee or i: Mousavi, Musavi and Moosavi are the same name; so are Alipour and Alipur.
• gh or q: the Persian ق and غ sound the same in standard Persian and are written gh or q: Ghasemi, Qasemi.
• The ending -ei: رضایی becomes Rezaei, Rezaee, Rezaie or Rezai. Older Persian spelling also used رضائی, with a hamza, which is why Rezaei often has that extra e.
• -zadeh or -zade, nejad or nezhad: the final h in Zadeh reflects the silent Persian ه. Nejad and nezhad are both used for نژاد.
• The letter ع: Ja’fari is usually simplified to Jafari.
• Joined or hyphenated: Hassanzadeh, Hassan-Zadeh and Hassan Zadeh are one surname, not two.

In Persian script, compound surnames are written with a zero-width non-joiner, a “half space”, so the parts stay visible but belong together: علی‌پور, حسن‌زاده. You will also see them typed joined or with a full space on older documents. If you are writing a name yourself, our Persian name converter and the post on how to write your name in Persian will help, and the guide to Finglish explains how Iranians themselves write Persian in Latin letters.

Surnames, marriage and family

In Iran, children take their father’s surname. Women keep their own surname when they marry; a wife does not become “Mrs. Karimi” on paper just because her husband is a Karimi. In daily speech, though, people may still call her by her husband’s name, and Iranian families abroad often follow local custom. For family words such as father, mother and grandfather, see our Persian dictionary.

Decode a surname: practice

Want to see how much you know about the country behind these names? Try our Iran quiz. To read surnames comfortably in Persian script, the Persian alphabet guide covers every letter you will meet in them.

If you enjoy learning words through the stories inside them, Top 1,500 Persian Words gathers the everyday vocabulary, including many of the job and family words that surnames are built from.

Common questions

What is the most common last name in Iran?

Lists differ depending on the source and year, but Mohammadi محمدی, Hosseini, Ahmadi, Rezaei and Mousavi appear near the top of almost every list. All of them come from the first names of the Prophet or the Imams plus the ending -i.

What does “zadeh” mean in a Persian last name?

Zadeh (زاده, zâde) means “born of” or “child of”. Hassanzadeh is “child of Hasan”, and Kermanizadeh is “child of the man from Kerman”. It is written as part of the surname, with or without a hyphen in English.

What does “pour” mean in Iranian surnames?

Pour (پور, pur) is a literary Persian word for “son”. Alipour means “son of Ali” and Rostampour “son of Rostam”. It works much like the English ending -son in Johnson.

Why do so many Iranian last names end in -i?

Because -i is the Persian ending for “of” or “from”. It turns a first name (Karimi, “of Karim”), a city (Shirazi, “from Shiraz”) or a trade (Zargari, “of the goldsmith”) into a family name. When surnames became compulsory in the 1920s, this was the simplest way to make one.

When did Iranians start using last names?

Fixed family names are recent in Iran. Civil registration began around 1919, and a law in the mid-1920s made a surname compulsory for everyone. Before that, people were known by a first name plus a father’s name, a hometown, a job or a title.

Do Iranian women change their last name after marriage?

No. In Iran a woman keeps her own surname for life, and children take their father’s surname. People may still call a married woman by her husband’s name in everyday speech, but her legal name does not change.

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