Servant of God, which is the combination of Abd (Servant) and Allah (God) is basically the meaning of the name ‘Abdullah’. This name which consists of 7 letters in Arabic writing, represents the number 142 in the Abjad numerical system. Abdullah is currently a Top 10 boy’s name in Iraq. It is also the name of the current Kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Abdullah is quite new to the American list of boy names currently in circulation; it only first appeared on the charts in 1996. In 2018 it reached the rank of 643, 149 and 31 respectively in the United States, England, and Turkey.
As mentioned above, since Abdullah is quite a popular name worldwide, lots of famous people held this name through history. The most famous one in Islamic unities is Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib who was the father of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, have the name Abdullah: Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein. Among the researchers, Abdullah Sediq can be mentioned who is a Pakistani physicist and ICTP laureate who received the ICTP Prize in the honor of Nikolay Bogolyubov, in the fields of Mathematics and Solid State Physics in 1987 for his contributions to scientific knowledge in the field of Mathematics and Statistical physics.
Likewise, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, CBE, FRSL was an Indian Islamic scholar who translated the Qur'an into English. His translation of the Qur'an is one of the most widely known and used in the English-speaking world. When it comes to the field of Art, Abdullah Al-Eyaf is a Saudi film director also known as Abdullah Al Eyaf and Abdullah Aleyaf is notable who directed many awards winning films. A South African pianist and composer whose music reflects many of the musical influences of his childhood in the multicultural port areas of Cape Town, ranging from traditional African songs to the gospel of the AME Church and ragas, to more modern jazz and other Western styles named Abdullah Ibrahim. Lastly, Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir also known as Munshi Abdullah was a Malayan writer of Indian origin. He was a famous Malacca-born Indian munshi of Singapore and died in Jeddah, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Munshi Abdullah is regarded as the most cultured Malay whoever wrote, one of the greatest innovators in Malay letters and the father of modern Malay literature.
The name Abdullah was not only popular for real-life people but also for the name of the movies. That many movies with the name Abdullah had been released in 1980, two in 2015 and also in 2017. All those mentioned movies have at least a rank of 6 out of 10 due to the IDMB ranking system. Moreover, there is a novel written by Hashim Nadeem titled Abdullah. The book is in Urdu language which had been published in 2009 by Jahangir Book Depot.
Last but not least, in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, Zaha Hadid’s design group has designed a petroleum Studies and Research Centre which is named after King Abdullah. In Singapore also you can find Munshi Abdullah Avenue.