My name is Rana. In Arabic it means catchy, beautiful eyes as verb yrno means having a long look or staring at something... it's a lovely name. I do like it.
I do know a stunning, beautiful and kind girl named Rhana, who is absolutely gorgeous, so my experience with this name usage is on the positive side. The meaning depicting beautiful and elegant would be what I would concentrate on. To be perfectly honest, I doubt that people will look deeply into the many name meanings if introduced to a girl named Rhana, though I respect the consideration put in by others who want a flawless translation (: I also think the added h is a delicate touch for a delicate name. Though I do live in Australia, so the culture in naming may differ.
It is not degrading! Using this name is fine if you're Muslim. I feel you are just perpetuating the "all Muslims are misogynist" stereotype. Different cultures have different concepts with name meanings. For example, some African names include meanings and concepts not found in any Western names. And to some people, meanings aren't why they pick their kids' names. Otherwise, every woman named Amanda would be lovable, every man named Basil would be a king, everyone named Ursula would be a little bear, and everyone named Gabriel would be a strong man of God. I think this is the wrong place for Westerners to force their standards and judgement on other cultures.
Horrible. The name doesn't look good in Arabic and the meaning in Russian (Рана) is 'wound'. It has the same meaning in Belarusian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovak (along with many other meanings, none particularly positive) and Polish. The Slovenian for 'wound' is 'rane', Romanian is 'rană' and Czech is 'rána'. It also means 'frog' in Catalan, Spanish and Italian. My sister's husband was thinking about naming their daughter this, but the response from the people we asked (mainly eastern European and Arab, with some western European and British) was massively negative. I am half Arab, half eastern European myself and hate the name. Some extreme forward thinking Arab expat women also find issue with the 'object' meaning. Personally this is one of my least favourite Arabic names ever.
― Anonymous User 11/13/2009
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This is a stupid name, considering it means "frog" in Spanish. It's not going to work outside of an Arab community.
Rana is a girl name in Iran meaning mainly 'elegant' as well as 'of elegant stature'. Although originally this name comes from Arabic meaning selfcentered and selfish, in Persian the use of the name has been twisted to mention a tall, elegant and stylish girl. This name has a common poetry usage as well.
In Bulgarian "rana" (the stress is on the 1st "a") is a noun, which means "wound", "sore" (the root is "ran"). "Rana" is not used as a name in Bulgaria.