The Shaykh’s remarks on the hadith (Let none of you say, “My soul is corrupt”) and his advice against naming children with names that have ugly meanings, such as (Saham - Wasal

The Shaykh : The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This is part of the noble Prophetic etiquette. The Messenger (peace be upon him) wants the Muslim, if he finds in himself a reluctance to obey or something that causes him material distress, not to express what he feels in his heart with the word “khabathat” (corrupt), because it is a foul word in both form and meaning. So he (peace be upon him) directed him, meaning he directed the Muslim away from this word to another word that conveys the same meaning, but without the revulsion that the Muslim feels when he hears the first word: , but rather he should say: , which is gentle in form, but conveys the same meaning in substance.
I intended with these two hadiths to answer the previous question, which is whether a boy should be named Nisim? I answered in the negative and said: No, because Nisim in the language means the same as wind. Would anyone name his son Wind?! No. But people today—as we said at the beginning of the answer to this question—care about soft-sounding words even if what is beneath them is what? Ugly meanings. So it is all the more important that they care about soft-sounding words even if there are no ugly meanings within them.
The word Nisim is of this kind. It is a gentle word, Nisim, but what is the meaning of Nisim? Nisim means wind. It has no meaning that is good or acceptable to the soul. Therefore, it is not one of the proper names that a Muslim should give to his sons and children. But the fashion of the age today has turned away from proper names to names of material things, such as the name of a tree or a stone or the like, which have never been mentioned in the Shari'ah at all. And the worst of it is when they criticize words that are at the same time not proper names but contain unattractive meanings, which are given to girls. There are those who name a girl Wasal, which is a very ugly meaning, reminding one of something that a person should not think about. So-and-so is named Wasal and so-and-so is named Nahad. What is the meaning of Nahad? It means one whose chest is prominent and protruding. This reminds one of things that are not noble at all. And another is better off if she had been named one arrow, but she was named arrows (Saham). And so on, many such names have arisen from the Muslims’ ignorance of Islamic etiquette and their ignorance of the names of the righteous Salaf, both men and women. And this is the end of the answer to that question.

The questioner: May Allah reward you with good. May Allah bless you.