Yasser Arafat - Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini ياسر عرفات

Arafat's original full name was Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini. Mohammed Abdel Rahman was his first name;

Abdel Raouf was his father's name and Arafat his grandfather's. Al-Qudwa was the name of his tribe and al-Husseini was that of the clan to which the al-Qudwas belonged. It should be noted that Arafat's clan, al-Husseini was based in Gaza and should not be confused with the well-known, but unrelated, al-Husayni clan of Jerusalem.

Since Arafat was raised in Cairo, the tradition of dropping the Mohammed or Ahmad portion of one's first name was common; notable Egyptians such as Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak did so. However, Arafat dropped also the Abdel Rahman and Abdel Raouf parts of his name as well. During the early 1950s, Arafat adopted the name Yasser, and in the early years of Arafat's guerrilla career, he assumed the nom de guerre of Abu Ammar. Both names are related to Ammar ibn Yasir, one of Muhammad's early followers. Although he dropped most of his inherited names, he retained Arafat due to its significance in Islam.