Mukhtar

Meaning of Mukhtar

Mukhtar is a masculine appellation of Arabic provenance, its lexeme tracing to the triliteral root kh-y-r, which in Semitic philology conveys the concept of selection or preference; the participial form muḵtār literally signifies “the chosen” or “elect” and evolved in medieval Islamic polities to designate the village headman or community adjudicator, a usage subsequently transmitted into Urdu via Persian intermediaries. Phonetically rendered as mook-TAHR (/muˈxtar/), the name preserves the original voiceless uvular fricative, although in Anglophone environments that segment frequently undergoes velar substitution. In the United States, Mukhtar’s onomastic footprint has remained modest since its initial appearance in Social Security Administration records in 1984—when five births secured a rank of 690—and has since oscillated between five and thirteen annual registrations, peaking at thirteen occurrences in 2018 (rank 899) before most recently numbering seven births in 2023 (rank 922). This data profile underscores a consistent yet rare adoption pattern, reflecting both the name’s technical phonological demands and its sociocultural specificity within Arabic-Urdu naming traditions.

Pronunciation

Arabic,Urdu

• Pronunced as mook-TAHR (/muˈxtar/)