Malik (name)

Malik, Maleek, Maliq, Malique, Malick, Mallick, Mallik, or Malyk (Arabic: مَالِك or مَلِك) (Urdu & Persian: مالک) () is a given name of West Asian Semitic origin. It is both used as first name and surname originally mainly in Western Asia by Christians, Muslims, and Jews of varying ethnicities such as Assyrians, Jews, Arameans, Mandeans and Arabs, before spreading to non-Semitic speaking countries in the Caucasus, South Asia, Central Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Asia, where most, but not all, users are Muslim. Several Semitic language traditions such as Hebrew and Aramaic (including Syriac) use its homonym and other different versions of it. In Arabic, Malik (Malek) مَالِك means owner, and Malyk (Malyeek) مَلِك means king. Its homonym, though other sounding, Moloch also means king or lord in Aramaic (which also uses 'Malek' and 'Malik', as in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic), as does the Modern Hebrew מֶלֶךְ‏ (mélekh). In ancient Akkadian and Eblaite, the terms 'Malka' and 'Malku' were used in Akkad, Ebla, Assyria and Babylonia. These and many other forms in most of the Semitic languages stem from a common Proto-Semitic root. Unrelated to the use in Semitic languages, Malik is also a common first name for men in Greenland (the ninth most common in 2021), and it means "ocean wave" in Greenlandic. Notable people with the name include: