Rahim

Meaning of Rahim

Rahim is a masculine given name of Arabic provenance, deriving from the triliteral root R-Ḥ-M and constituting one of the ninety-nine al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā, wherein it denotes “the Merciful” or “the Compassionate” within Islamic theology; its utilization as an anthroponymic element—whether in isolation or in compound theophoric constructions such as ʿAbd al-Raḥīm—reflects a longstanding devotional practice aimed at invoking divine attributes. In the United States, Rahim has maintained a modest yet consistent demographic footprint, as evidenced by Social Security Administration data showing forty-two occurrences in 2024 and a popularity ranking of 882nd among male given names, a position that has oscillated roughly between the 650th and 900th ranks since the early 1980s. Its pronunciation, standardized as ra-HEEM [raːˈhiːm] in Modern Standard Arabic, remains largely invariant across anglophone settings, thereby facilitating phonological stability and cross-cultural transmission. Although Rahim does not rank among the most common Anglo-American names, its persistent presence underscores both the diversification of naming practices in multicultural societies and the enduring resonance of its semantic lineage.