Persian2 syllablesPre-Shahnameh
Meaning: the archer; one reading of the old form is bright, shining.
Arash
| Origin | Persian — Arash the Archer, a legend recorded in the Avesta, older than the Shahnameh |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Uncertain. The Avestan form is Erexsha, sometimes read as bright or shining; no derivation is agreed |
| Pronunciation | ah-RASH (two syllables, stress on the second) |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100. Very common in Iran, where it was a favourite of the 1970s and 1980s; still unusual in the U.S. |
| Variants | Arash, Aresh, Arish, Erexsha (Avestan), Arash-e Kamangir (the full epithet) |
| Nicknames | None standard. The name is already short and takes the affectionate -jan instead |
| Festival | Tiregan, on the thirteenth of Tir, is tied to the day the arrow flew |
History & meaning
Arash is the odd one out among the Iranian hero names, because Ferdowsi does not tell his story. The archer is older than the Shahnameh and comes down a different route. He is named in the Avesta, in the hymn to the star Tishtrya, as Erexsha, the swiftest archer among the Iranians, whose arrow flew from one mountain to another. The narrative that Iranians actually know was written down later, by al-Tabari, by al-Biruni in his book on the calendars of ancient nations, and by Tha'alibi.
In that version the war between Iran and Turan ends in a settlement: the border will be wherever an arrow lands. Arash climbs Mount Damavand, shows the watching armies that he carries no wound and no hidden device, and at dawn he shoots. He dies at the moment of release, having put his whole life into the draw. The arrow flies until noon and comes down on the bank of the Oxus, and that becomes the frontier. Biruni attaches the day to Tiregan, the midsummer festival on the thirteenth of Tir. In modern Iran the story was made new by Siavash Kasrai's 1959 poem Arash the Archer, written in the disillusioned years after the 1953 coup, and by a stage play from Bahram Beyzai the year before. That is why the name reads as both very old and distinctly twentieth-century among Persian names.
Why parents choose it
Two syllables, no silent letters, and an English speaker gets it right on the first attempt, which is not true of most names in this cluster. The story behind it is about giving everything once rather than fighting repeatedly, and parents who know it tend to say that is the reason. It has also been genuinely fashionable in Iran for two generations, so it does not read as a revival name there.
Middle names for Arash
The name ends on a sibilant, so avoid a middle name starting with S: Arash Daniel, Arash Kian, Arash Michael, Arash Bahram. The middle names guide covers the consonant clashes worth avoiding.
Famous Arashes
Arash Labaf, the Iranian-Swedish singer who records as Arash, had a European hit with Boro Boro in 2004 and represented Azerbaijan at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009. Arash Ferdowsi co-founded Dropbox with Drew Houston in 2007 and was its chief technology officer, a nice coincidence of surname for a name this old.
Consider instead
Kaveh is the other hero from outside the ruling class, a blacksmith rather than an archer. Bahram carries victory in its actual meaning. Rostam if you want the Shahnameh proper.