Malik (name)

Malik, Maleek, Malek or Malyk (Arabic: مَالِك or مَلِك) (Urdu & (Persian): مالک) () is a given name of Semitic origin. It is both used as first name and surname originally mainly in Western Asia by Semitic speaking Christians, Muslims and Jews of varying ethnicities, before spreading to countries in the Caucasus, South Asia, Central Asia, North Africa and Southeast Asia where most users are Muslim.

Several Semitic language traditions such as Hebrew and Aramaic 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''). It also means belonging of Amanda. In ancient Akkadian the terms 'Malka' and 'Malku' were used. 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. Provided by Wikipedia