Naming of Males in Iranian Folktales with a Special Attention to Folktales of Lorestan Province

There are few researches on the naming in short and long story characters of contemporary writers and long Iranian folktales, but so far no similar research has been done on Iranian short folktales. The present descriptive-analytical study is an attempt to investigate the male naming in Iranian folktales with emphasis on folktales of Lorestan province. The legends of the two collections, which were collected by “Anjavi-Shirazi” and “Farahvashi” from different regions of the country and Lorestan province, respectively, were used in the study. Mohammad, Ahmad, Hassan, Ali, Abbas, Ibrahim and Jamshid were the most common male names. The high frequency of Mohammad, Ahmad, Ali and Abbas can be justified according to Islamic culture. The names of Jamshid and Ibrahim alone or in combination are not among the 50 most frequent names in Iran. In folktales, Jamshid is always called King Jamshid, beautifully described, associated with iron weapons, kills demons and dragons, and flies into the sky, suggesting a connection between persons named Jamshid in folktales and the mythical Jamshid. Thus, the high frequency of “Jamshid” in folktales is justified. The high frequency of “Ibrahim”, which is not an Iranian name, seems interesting. In the first centuries A.H., it was tried to consider Zarathustra and Ibrahim as one personality. Thus, the ancient Iranian prophet has two names. The new name gradually replaces the old name in folktales. The high number of Ibrahim in folktales is due to the efforts of Iranians of the first centuries of Islam to preserve the name of Zoroaster.