Baba

1. Japanese: from a word meaning ‘horse-riding ground’, ‘race track’; a common place name. The surname is found mostly in west central Japan. One Baba family in Kai (now Yamanashi prefecture) were samurai, vassals of the Takeda family.

2. Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Hungarian: from the Slavic word baba ‘old woman’, ‘grandmother’, ‘witch’, hence an unflattering nickname for a man thought to resemble an old woman. In Czech baba can also mean ‘coward’.

3. Hungarian (Bába): habitational name from one of many places called Bába, in Abaúj, Borsod, Somogy, and Vas counties of Hungary, and Közép-Szolnok county, now in Romania.

4. Arabic (Bābā): from a diminutive of Abū ‘father’.

GIVEN NAMES: Japanese 29%; Arabic 9%. Takashi (5), Tetsuo (3), Seiji (2), Tsutomu (2), Akifumi, Arata, Ayako, Haruo, Haruyo, Hideo, Hikari, Hiroaki; Abbas, Akram, Ali, Bader, Daouda, Essam, Fadi, Fawaz, Faysal, Fuad, Hajji, Idrees.

See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.