WHAT’S IN A NAME? MALAY SEALS AS ONOMASTIC SOURCES

Most studies of Malay names to date have been based on ethnographic and literary sources. This article presents a new dataset for Malay onomastics, namely Islamic seals from Southeast Asia, inscribed in Arabic script and dating from the late 16th to early 20th century, over half of which bear a personal name. A high proportion of these seals are of sovereigns, and Malay seals are thus an exceptionally valuable primary source for regnal names. Yet while in Malay texts and chronicles the use of personal names is generally avoided in favour of kinship terms, relational names, titles and descriptive epithets, Malay seals are almost invariably inscribed with standard Arabic-Islamic personal names. This feature should be interpreted in the context of the image of self which the sealholder wished to project to the outside world, in which his or her Islamic identity, and membership of the universal ummah, was of prime importance.


INTRODUCTION
In any society, onomastics or the study of personal names and naming systems can yield important insights into traditional values, customs and institutions. In Muslim societies, "beautiful" or "graceful" names for children were exhorted by the Prophet, for it was by their names, and the names of their fathers, that people would be summoned on Doomsday. 1 Nowadays, there are many popular books on sale in Malaysia and Indonesia listing appropriate Islamic names for children. 2 But what do we know of how Malay names were selected and used in the past?
In the study of Malay names, three main categories of onomastic source materials have traditionally been consulted. In the first group are religious works which contain advice on the suitability of various names. One of the earliest such sources in Malay is the Sirāt al-mustaqīm, "The straight path", composed in Aceh in 1644 by Nuruddin al-Raniri, which right until the late 19th century remained one of the most widely used handbooks for the practice of Islamic law in everyday life across the archipelago. 3 Both prescriptive and proscriptive, it commends the choice of certain names, as well as highlighting other names which should be shunned.
The second group is descriptive historical and ethnographic accounts, some of which date back to the 18th century. The earliest notable such source is William Marsden's observations on Malay names in his History of Sumatra, first published in 1783, based on his years in Bengkulu on the west coast of Sumatra from 1771 to 1779. 4 Published nearly one and a half centuries later in 1935, Edwin Loeb's Sumatra: Its history and people is also informative on naming practices in many Sumatran societies. 5 An especially valuable account by Ibrahim bin Datuk Muda entitled Bahawa inilah kitab kumpulan nama Melayu, iaitu menghimpunkan segala nama dan gelaran, timang-timangan dan rawah-rawahan yang terpakai pada orang-orang Melayu di sebelah sini ["This is a compendium of Malay names, being a compilation of names, titles, nicknames and associated forms used by Malays in these parts"], 6 was compiled and published in 1924 in Singapore at the behest of the Education Department of the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, and is a good guide to Malay naming practice on the eve of the modern era.
The third major source for information on Malay names is literary texts and historical works, which record the genealogies of royal families and their descendants. Two of the richest such repositories of Malay names are the chronicle of the Sultanate of Melaka, Sejarah Melayu or Sulalāt al-Salatīn, "Genealogy of Kings", compiled in 1612 by the Bendahara of Johor, Tun Seri Lanang, and Tuhfat al-Nafīs, "The Precious Gift", the account of the history of Johor-Riau composed in the mid-19th century by Raja Ali Haji.
These and other sources will be surveyed for information on Malay naming practices, before we consider the evidence of a previously untapped source of onomastic data: Malay seals.

MALAY NAMES: NAMA AND TIMANG-TIMANGAN
According to Nuruddin al-Raniri, the commended (sunat) moment for naming a child was either at the moment of birth or seven days later. The personal name (nama) given to a Malay child at birth was also referred to as the nama daging 7 or nama batang tubuh, or nama kerat pusat as it was usually given at the behest of the midwife at the moment of the cutting of the umbilical cord, according to the account by Ibrahim bin Datu Muda. 8 However, for most of their lives, these children are probably called something else. Name taboos proliferate, and in many societies throughout the Malay archipelago it is forbidden to say one's own name. This indiscretion was strictly avoided in some societies and, at the very least, deemed indecorous in others. 9 Thus the over-frequent use of one's own name is mocked in the Malay proverb bagai tiung menyebut nama ["calling out one's name like a mynah bird" 10 ], and the same proverb is found in Aceh and Gayo. 11 In the Malay world, as in many Islamic societies 12 and other cultures, nor was it permitted to say the names of parents, ancestors, or anyone of a higher rank. 13 In the Sirāt al-mustaqīm those of lower age and status are instructed not to use the names of their elders and betters: Dan demikian lagi sunat bagi anak dan murid dan khadam bahwa jangan ia menyerukan ibu bapanya dan gurunya dan tuannya dengan nama dirinya 14 ["Thus children and pupils and servants should not address their parents or teachers or masters by their personal names"]. In traditional Malay society this taboo was extended to spouses, and it was deemed kurang benar manisnya, "really not very nice/appropriate", to hear a wife utter her husband's name. 15 These deeply-embedded name taboos led to the widespread use of relationship terms and other such titles instead of names in everyday speech.
Therefore, from childhood onwards Malays are often also given various nicknames or descriptive epithets called gelaran or timang-timangan, "cradle names". These may be based on position in the family, such as sulong or long for the oldest, ngah for the second, alang for the third, anjang for the fourth, andak for the fifth, teh or puteh for the sixth, and bungsu, busu, su or cu for the last (irrespective of number), or tunggal for an only child. Timang-timangan could also reflect (perceived) physical attributes, complimentary or otherwise, such as pendek, "short", bisu, "silent", buncit, "pot-bellied", or itam, "black", i.e. dark-skinned; or certain days of the week or months, such as Khamis, Jumat or Saban. 16 When young, a variety of diminuitives or nicknames may be used for a child, until one just "sticks": Pada masa kanak2 itu ditimang maka biasalah pula dipanggil akan dia dengan berbagai2 nama kemanjaan iaitulah yang dikatakan timang2an seperti yang tersebut di atas tadi, hingga terkadang lenyap namanya yang sebenar diserap oleh satu2 timang2an yang melekat sampai ke tua 17 ["While a baby is still in the cradle, he or she is usually addressed by all sorts of terms of endearment, the "cradle names" referred to above, to the extent that sometimes his or her real name is completely replaced by a nickname that sticks right into adulthood"]. Once a person is married and has children, teknonymy -the naming of a person after their child -is practised for both father and mother; for example Pak/Mak Long, "father/mother of his/her first-born" or Pak Tunggal, "father of an only child". 18 In Minangkabau society, personal names are abandoned completely at adulthood when each person inherits a family title, as illustrated by the proverb kecil bernama, gadang bergelar, "infants bear names, adults bear titles". 19 Positional sobriquets could also be combined with titles of rank for aristocrats, for example, Tengku Sulung, "Prince Eldest-born", for the son of Yam Tuan Raja Ismail of Siak, and Engku Andak, "Lady Fifth-born", for the daughter of Syarifah Halimah and Engku Sayid Muhammad Zain al-Kudsi in the Tuhfat al-Nafīs. 20 Noble titles could also be combined with descriptive epithets, such as the delightfully-named Tun Isap Misai, "Sir Moustache-Stroker", in the Sejarah Melayu, 21 or with titles of office, such as Datuk Tua or, indeed, Lebai Malang, "the ill-fortuned preacher".
Tun Muhammad namanya, Tun Seri Lanang timang-timangannya, "Tun Muhammad is my name, and Tun Seri Lanang my familiar appellative". 22 As this famous self-introduction by the compiler of the Sejarah Melayu illustrates, Malay birth-names (nama) are often Arabic-Islamic names 23 and timang-timangan are generally indigenous appellatives, although this is not necessarily always the case. The early genealogical sections of the Tuhfat al-Nafīs are a mine of information on naming practice, and the classifier nama is found applied to many Malay descriptors, such as Puteri Kesumba, Puteri Emas Inderawati, Dahing Cellak, Raja Andut and Engku Muda. 24 Even when a distinction is drawn between nama and timang-timangan, it is not always obviously reflected in the nature of the appellative, as in the case of Sultan Sulaiman's sister "yang bernama Tengku Tengah, timang-timangannya Tun Irang" 25 ["who was named Tengku Tengah, "Princess Middle-born," while her appellative was Tun Irang"]. Conversely, Arabic names could also be given as gelaran: in the Sejarah Melayu, a son of Sultan Mansur Syah is named Raja Ahmad but bears the timang-timangan Raja Husain. 26 Thus it is not always easy to distinguish between nama and timang-timangan purely on a textual basis.
While a few birth names might be recorded in historical sources, in general in Malay texts the use of personal names is avoided in favour of kinship terms, relational names, titles and descriptive epithets. However, an exceptionally rich historical source for Muslim personal names from Southeast Asia can now be identified: Malay seals.

MALAY SEALS AS ONOMASTIC SOURCES
Malay seals can be defined as seals from Southeast Asia with inscriptions at least partially in the Arabic script, generally written in Malay and/or Arabic. These seals are found mainly as seal impressions stamped on manuscript letters, treaties and other documents dating from the mid-16th to the early 20th century, but some seal matrices, usually made of silver or brass, have also been recorded. In traditional Malay polities the right to use a seal was restricted to court circles, and Malay seals can generally be characterised as official personal seals, in which the inscription serves to identify the individual sealholder in terms of his position in the social and political hierarchy of the state. The only other significant social grouping in Islamic regions of Southeast Asia to use seals was the religious fraternity. The most important element of the inscription on a Malay seal was thus the title and/or name of the owner, and of the 2150 seals catalogued by the present author, over half -1082 -contain a personal name. 27 This corpus of data can be analysed according to various parameters. For example, a chronological analysis reveals that there 38 names are from the 17th century, 250 from the 18th century, 708 from the 19th century, and 84 from the early 20th century. Regionally, the results can be presented as follows: there are 248 names from the Malay peninsula; 388 from Sumatra, including 245 from Aceh; 140 from Borneo/Kalimantan; 110 from Sulawesi; 23 from Maluku; 47 from Nusa Tenggara; 61 from the Philippines; and 51 from Java and Madura. Certain observations can be made arising from this data; for example, only 27% of Islamic seals from Java bear personal names, compared to 75% from Sulawesi. Although throughout the Malay world the main function of the seal inscription is to identify the individual seal owner, there are certainly regional predilections in the style of inscription. Thus a high proportion of Banten seals only bear noble titles in Javanese rather than an Islamic personal name. On the other hand, Sulawesi seals tend to bear inscriptions written wholly in Arabic with standard Islamic personal names, but without any indigenous names or titles in Bugis/Makassar. On Malay seals, indigenous appellatives of the form of timang-timangan are relatively scarce. Only a few obvious examples have been noted, such as Busu ibn Sulaiman (#148), 28 "the youngest-born of Sulaiman", and Matamata Imam Alang (#151), for a guard and religious official who was the second-born in his family, both these examples being found on late 18thcentury seals from Kedah. The name Muhammad Puti (Putih, "white", i.e. fair-skinned) in the pedigree of a seal from Palembang (#1076) may be an example of a type of name identified by Ibrahim bin Datuk Muda: sometimes, those unhappily "stuck" with a nickname for so long that all around, and even they themselves, no longer know their real name, try to improve on it by adding Muhammad or Abdul in front when writing, tetapi tidaklah disadar oleh mereka tambahan begitu akan memberatkan kesalahan itu lagi ["not realising that by doing so they are simply making matters worse" 29 ].
In general, personal names found on Malay seals are standard Arabic-Islamic names, familiar from throughout the Muslim world, and these will be explored further below. (It should be noted that in this study, Islamic names used in Southeast Asia are given in their standard Malay spellings, without diacritics, but references to any original Arabic-language forms in brackets are given in full transliteration, prefixed by the abbreviation "Ar." for "Arabic").

NAMES ON MALAY SEALS: ISM AND LAQAB
A full classical Arabic name may be made up of several components: a kunya, a teknonymous name compound usually based on Abū, "father of"; an ism or 'alam or proper name; a laqab or descriptive or honorific epithet; the nasab or pedigree, generally prefaced by bin or ibn, meaning "son of"; and a nisba or descriptive epithet which might indicate a place of origin or profession. 30 The question of nasab, or the presentation of genealogical information on Malay seals, is of considerable interest, and is the subject of a separate study. 31 Kunya are very rarely encountered on Malay seals, and then only as part of regnal names, and like nisba will be discussed further below. By far the most commonly encountered elements of Islamic names on Malay seals are ism and laqab, with the proviso that in the Malay world in many cases laqab function as ism or proper names, rather than descriptive epithets. Of the numerous types of ism, 32 (10) and Abdul Jalil (Ar. 'Abd al-Jalīl) (28). 4. Abstract nouns such Fadl, (Ar. Fadl) "virtue" (6), etc. 5. Names based on laqab, which in the course of time have come to be regarded just as personal names, particularly compounds with al-Dīn, "of religion", for example, Najamuddin, (Ar. Najm al-Dīn) "the star of religion" (5), and Zainuddin, (Ar. Zayn al-Dīn) "the ornament of religion" (3). 6. Names of pre-Muslim heroes, such as Iskandar (25).
Overall, there are few surprises in the statistics, for the popularity of certain names on Malay seals follows well-trodden paths familiar from all other Muslim regions. The most frequently-encountered name of all is naturally that of the Prophet, for there are various traditions (hadīth) which extol the virtues of the name Muhammad. In the Sirāt al-mustaqīm it is said that all who bear the name Muhammad will enter paradise. 33 Cognates of Muhammad, and names of his family, the ahl al-bayt, together constitute the most numerous category of personal names. The second most popular choice is the group of names which are technically laqab or descriptive epithets, formed out of the words 'Abd al-, "servant of", followed by one of the Most Beautiful Names of God (al-asmā' al-husnā). In the Sirāt almustaqīm, Nuruddin judged Abdullah and Abdul Rahman the "best names" (yang terafdol dari segala nama itu). 34 Names on seals of commoners normally comprise just a simple ism, sometimes accompanied by the nasab. But 473 or nearly half of all the Malay seals bearing names are sovereign seals, and this study will now focus on regnal names found on Islamic seals from the Malay world.

ISLAMIC REGNAL NAMES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
As primary historical sources, Malay seals are an exceptionally important resource for the names of sovereigns. This is illustrated well by the earliest known seal from present-day Malaysia (#1677), which is also the only known source for the name the sultan of Pahang who ruled briefly for one year after killing his father, Sultan Abdul Ghafar Syah (r. 1592-1614) and his elder brother, the Raja Muda Abdullah, in 1614. In his History of Pahang published in 1936, Linehan simply noted, "Sultan 'Abdu' l-Ghafur was suceeded in 1614 by his parricidal and piratical younger son whose name history does not disclose". 35 Even a peace treaty with the Portuguese dated 16 August 1614 simply calls the ruler El Rey de Pão, and it is only his seal, stamped on the treaty, that reveals his regnal name as Sultan Alauddin Riayat Syah, and also confirms the name of his father as Abdul Ghafar (Ar.  On taking the title sultan, many Southeast Asian Islamic rulers also assumed a formal regnal Arabic-Islamic name. Regnal names are generally more elaborate than non-sovereign names, and more likely to approximate to the classical Arabic model of consisting of both an ism and a laqab, and in a few cases even include a kunya. Their mode of combining in each state is often distinctive, to the extent that in some cases the origin or provenance of a seal could be divined simply from the pattern of the ruler's regnal name. Sometimes the regnal name was simply the ruler's personal name prior to his accession; for example, when Syarif Kasim of Pontianak (r. 1808-1819) ascended the throne his seal bore the name al-Sultan al-Syarif al-Sayid Kasim (#59).
In other cases, a ruler might adopt a regnal name which was completely different from his personal name; thus when Syarif Ismail became ruler of Siak (r. 1827-64) he took the regnal name Sultan Abdul Jalil Jalaluddin (Ar. 'Abd al-Jalīl Jalāl al-Dīn, "Servant of the Awe Inspiring One, Majesty of the Faith"), as found on a seal dated 1242 (1826/7), the year of his accession (#758), although his personal name Sultan Sayid Syarif Ismail is still used on a seal dated 1273 (1856/7) (#919). The personal name of the second sultan of Selangor is given on his seal as Badaruddin (#328), although in the letters on which this seal is stamped he is always identified by his regnal name of Sultan Ibrahim (r. 1778-1826).

REGNAL NAMES IN BANTEN
Regnal names were chosen with great care for their auspicious meanings.
In quite a few states dynastic patterns of names were established which survived many generations, and one of the most elaborate Islamic regnal naming systems in Southeast Asia can be observed in the kingdom of Banten in west Java. Banten received Islam from the city-state of Demak in around 1527, and its early rulers probably used Javanese royal titles. In 1638, a Banten embassy returned from Mecca with the news that the Grand Sharif had bestowed the title of "sultan" on the father and son co-sovereigns of the state. The king then took the regnal name Sultan Abu al-Mafakhir Mahmud Abdul Kadir (Ar. Abū al-Mafākhir Mahmūd 'Abd al-Qādir, "Father of glories, the richly praised one, servant of the Able One") (r. 1596-1651) while his son was named Sultan Abu al-Maali Ahmad Rahmatullah (Ar. Abū al-Ma'ālī Ahmad Rahmat Allāh, "Father of eminences, the most praiseworthy one, [the one who enjoys] God's mercy"). Both elaborate regnal names comprise a metaphorical kunya -so-termed as Abū precedes an abstract quality rather than the name of an actual son 36 -with an ism or proper name, followed by laqab, and here too we note the close similarity of ism and laqab, with both comprising pious descriptors.
Sultan Abu al-Maali predeceased his father, and Sultan Abu al-Mafakhir was succeeded by his grandson, Sultan Abu al-Fath Abdul Fattah (Ar. Abū al-Fath 'Abd al-Fattah, "Father of victory, servant of the Victorious One") (r. 1651-1682), whose name comprises a kunya paired with an ism of the same root for alliterative and synonymous resonance, a principle underlying the composition of some other Muslim regnal names. Sultan Abu al-Fath's son and from 1675 his co-sovereign, often referred to as Sultan Haji, was entitled Sultan Abu al-Nasr Abdul Kahar (Ar. Abū al-Nasr 'Abd al-Qahhār, "Father of succour, servant of the All Compelling One") (r. 1682-1687). 37 Thus these early regnal names from Banten suggest a pattern based around the formula Sultan Abū al-X 'Abd al-Y, in each case combining a metaphorical kunya with an ism.
On 15 January 1691 Sultan Haji's son was installed as Sultan Abu al-Mahasin Abdul Nasir (Ar. Abū al-Mahāsin 'Abd al-Nāsir, "Father of virtues, servant of the Helper") (r. 1691-1733), but according to contemporary Dutch East India Company (VOC) accounts, five weeks later the king announced that the name "Abdul Nasir" was to be replaced by "Zain al-Abedin" 38 (Ar. Zayn al-'Ābidīn, "Ornament of the servants of God"). On all his seals, which are all dated 1691, his regnal name reads Sultan Abu al-Mahasin Muhammad Zainal Abidin (#91, #92, #953). This change of name is unexplained, but was most probably linked to inauspicious occurrences following his investiture. This episode recalls one of the most high-profile instances of the re-naming of an Muslim king, in fact concerning the Safavid ruler of Persia contemporary with this sultan of Banten. Shāh Ṣafī II was enthroned on 2 October 1667, but in consequence of his ill health and the misfortunes of the kingdom, it was decided to enthrone him a second time on 20 March 1669 as Sulaymān I, under which name he reigned until his death in 1694. 39 It is possible that knowledge of this event had some bearing on the Banten case, and certainly illustrates vividly the level of concern concerning the appropriateness of the regnal name.
Thereafter, almost without exception, the sultans of Banten bore regnal names with a kunya, an ism and a laqab according to the formula of Sultan Royal Banten seals are exceptional in the Malay Muslim world in consistently including a kunya in the regnal name, and, by the early 19th century, a selection of nisba. It could thus be said that Banten appears to be the only Islamic kingdom in Southeast Asia where there was a clear attempt to emulate fully the classical Arabic model for names in the composition of regnal names selected for its sovereigns.

RULERS ON THE ISLAND OF SUMBAWA: "SERVANTS OF THE PROPHET"
According to orthodox Islamic practice, name compounds formed with the word ̒ abd meaning "servant, slave" should be used exclusively with Divine Names and not with the names of the Prophet. Nonetheless such names are found, especially in the non-Arab eastern Islamic lands, 40 and when -following in the footsteps of the Banten sovereigns -Sultan Agung of Mataram received the title of sultan from the Grand Sharif of Mecca in 1641, he assumed the regnal name Sultan Abdul Muhammad Maulana Matarani. 41 For a brief period in the second half of the 18th century, there seems to have been a particular "trend" for these names expressing devotion and servitude to the Prophet in the various kingdoms on the island of Sumbawa. One ruler of Pekat who ascended the throne in 1794 bore the name Abdul Muhammad, "servant of Muhammad" (#890), while an earlier ruler of Pekat who died on 13 February 1756 was called Abdul Rasul. 42 In the neighbouring kingdom of Bima, the Raja Bicara or Wazir al-Muazzam (chief minister) of Bima in 1805 was named Abdul Nabi (#388). Usually regarded as equally unacceptable to orthodox Sunnis is the name of the Raja Bicara of Bima in 1744, Abdul Ali. 43 This name, together with Abdul Nabi and Abdul Rasul, is specifically condemned by Nuruddin al-Raniri in the Sirāt al-mustaqīm. 44

LAQAB AS REGNAL NAMES
The use of certain types of laqab -honorific or descriptive epithets -as regnal names can be traced back to the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad of the 8th century onwards, who were the first to adopt regnal names such as al-Rashīd, "the rightly guided" or al-Mutawakkil 'alā Allāh, "who entrusts himself to God", after which most other Islamic rulers followed suit. 45 From the 9th centuries onwards, laqab of honour were bestowed by the caliphs on princes and high officials, often compounds with al-dawla "the state", al-mulk "the kingdom", or al-dunyā "the world"; these could then be extended with the addition of wa-al-dīn "and of religion", emphasizing both the temporal and spiritual dimensions of office. 46 Later on, titles based only on al-dīn were issued, and in the course of time came to be regarded just as personal names, such as Nur al-dīn, "Light of religion". This phenomenon was particularly associated with the eastern parts of the Islamic world, and it was probably from India that the popularity of these forms reached the Malay world. Al-dīn compounds comprise over half the regnal names in Sulawesi seals -such as Sultan Zainuddin (Zayn al-dīn, "Ornament of religion") of Gowa (#863) -and were also strongly present on the east coast of Sumatra, where the pattern Sultan X Y al-Dīn is found in the seals of seven sultans of Jambi and five of Palembang. The same pattern is also found in Sambas, where the ism X in regnal names appears to have been selected consistently from the names of the Prophet and the four orthodox Caliphs. The formula Sultan 'Abd al-Jalīl Y al-Dīn is found in the seals of five sultans of Siak (eg. Sultan Abdul Jalil Saifuddin, "Servant of the Awe Inspiring One, sword of religion", #760). 47 One of the most important laqab which features in the regnal names of a number of Malay rulers, but on seals is most strongly associated with Aceh, is Alauddin ('Alā al-dīn, "Head of religion"). The first ruler of Aceh to bear this laqab was Sultan Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahar, r. 1537-1579, 48 and it is found on all the seals of the sultans of the last, "Bugis" dynasty of Aceh, who reigned from 1735 onwards. In Aceh this laqab formed an integral part of the regnal title: Sultan signified his worldly power of the head of state, while Alauddin signified his spiritual dimension as head of the faith. 49 It was also chosen as the regnal name of the first Muslim sultan of Gowa (#1095) (elegantly complementing the name Sultan Awaluddin (Ar. Awwal al-dīn), "first of the faith", chosen by the Sultan of Tallo' who had converted to Islam slightly earlier), and as the official generic regnal name of the Bugis Yang Dipertuan Muda of Johor, who were all styled Sultan Alauddin Syah ibn Opu (#144, #341, #342).
Another common consituent of Malay laqab is al-'ālam, "the world". The regnal name of the first queen of Aceh, Sultanah Tajul Alam Safiatuddin Syah (Tāj al-'Ālam Safīat al-Dīn, "Crown of the world, the pure one of religion") (#508), was evidently chosen to stress her inheritance from the great Iskandar Muda, for tāj is the Arabic equivalent of the Sanskrit-derived makota, rendering her laqab synonymous with her father's title, Makota Alam. Another name of Iskandar Muda, Perkasa Alam, "Valiance of the world", recurs as part of the regnal name of three sultans of Deli in the 19th century (#632, #634). Alam is also a constituent of some of the most obviously non-Islamic regnal names used in conjunction with the title "sultan" noted on Malay seals: Gagar Alam, "Earth Shaker", Gentar Alam, "Earth Quaker" and Mengidar Alam, "Earth Revolver" of Panai (#610, #803), and Tunggul Alam Begagar "Support of the Shaking Earth" of Minangkabau (#1028). These titles from Malay states in Sumatra echo the royal Javanese titles originating from the house of Mataram, Paku Buwono, "Pivot of the World", and Hamengku Buwono, "Bearing the World on his Lap", suggesting a deeply-held Nusantaran affinity for these concepts.

NAMES OF HEROES AND SAINTS
A few sovereign seals pay homage to heroes, saints and prophets. The Islamic name of Alexander the Great, Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn, "Iskandar the Two-Horned", is found on two royal seals from Ternate (#361, #940); with the name Iskandar on a further seal (#360), one from Maguindanao (#1016) and one from Minangkabau (#660), while his namesake, the most famous sultan of Aceh, in turn became a hero whose name Iskandar Muda is incorporated into the regnal name of a sultan of Perak (#294).
The name of "possibly the most venerated saint in the Islamic world" 50 , 'Abd al-Qādir Jīlānī (d. 1166), founder of the Qadiriyyah sufi order, was inscribed on the seal used by Arung Tabujung, a Bugis nobleman resident in Selangor in the 18th century, whose seal reads Sultan Abdul Kadir Jailani (#765). 51 The same name, Sultan Abdul Kadir Jailani, is found in the text of a contract of 1770 between a sultan of Dompu on the island of Sumbawa and the Dutch VOC, although the ruler's seal on that contract just reads Sultan Abdul Kadir (#892). The well-known laqab of this saint was Muhyī al-Dīn, "Reviver of religion", and the use of the regnal name Sultan Abdul Muhyiuddin for a sultan of Jambi named on 18th-century Minangkabau seals of patronage (#661, #1742, #1965) raises the question of whether this ruler might have been a member of the Qadiriyyah brotherhood.

DYNASTIC REGNAL NAMES
It was not uncommon in the Malay world, as elsewhere, for a regnal name to be repeated within a particular dynasty. Thus there were four rulers named Sultan Muhammad in Kelantan between 1798 and 1920, and three rulers called Sultan Umar Ali Saifuddin (Ar. Sayf al-dīn, "Sword of religion") in Brunei over the course of two centuries. However, it does not seem to have been the custom in Malay seals or other written sources to identify these rulers numerically or ordinally, for example, in the form "Sultan Muhammad 3" or "Sultan Muhammad Ketiga ('the Third')". One reason may be that in Malay chronicles, rulers with the same regnal name are often differentiated by citing their posthumous epithets; while even these may not be unique, the combination of the two usually is. 52 The only such well-known "ordinal" title is that of Sultan Iskandar Thani, "Sultan Iskandar the Second" (r. 1636-1641), for the Pahang-born son-inlaw and successor of Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh. Such nomenclature has only been found on one seal, belonging to Sultan Abu al-Fath of Banten who was also known as Sultan Agung or Sultan Tirtayasa. One of his six seals, impressed in black wax on the wrapper of a letter dated 1681 to King Charles II, bears an inscription combining Malay, Arabic and Javanese linguistic elements, which reads Alamat surat Sultan Agung ing Thānī, "The sign of the letter of Sultan Agung the Second" (#1090), in acknowledgement of the (less well-known) fact that his grandfather and predecessor, Sultan Abu al-Mafakhir was also styled "Sultan Agung". 53 The use of this ordinal term, so unusual in Malay seals, may have been modelled on Javanese 54 or other Islamic 55 practice.

NISBA
In Arabic names, the nisba is usually placed at the end, and takes the form of an adjectival noun which refers to some attribute by which a person may be identified, most frequently his place of origin. The earliest known use of a nisba which can be attributed to a Southeast Asian is that of the sufi master Masud al-Jawi (Mas'ūd al-Jāwī), resident in Yemen in the early 14th century, who is referred to in a 15th-century collection of sufi biographies. 56 In the Malay world the use of nisba is most heavily associated with religious scholars writing in both Malay and Arabic, with many well-known examples including Abdul Rauf al-Fansurī al-Jāwī, Abdul Samad al-Falimbānī, Daud al-Fatanī, and naturally Nuruddin al-Ranīrī. Many of these ulama were for long periods resident in the Hijaz, where nisba formed a regular constituent part of an Arabic name, and where indeed such geographical nisba were needed to identify the regional origins of scholars perhaps sharing the same personal name or ism. On the other hand nisba are not often encountered in Malay chronicles or other writings, although a few examples do exist.
About one hundred Malay seals with nisba have been documented, of which the earliest is the seal of Sultan Maulana Jafar Sadik Syah of Maguindanao (r. ca. 1711-1733), who bears the nisba al-Mindanāwī (#1579). When this corpus is interrogated further, two distinct subgroupings can be discerned. The first comprises about 20 seals bearing nisba which were produced and used within traditional Malay polities, such as the Mindanao seal noted above. Also in this category are four seals of nobles from south and east Kalimantan, whose names include al-Banjarī (#1245, #2083), al-Kutai (#1269) and al-Cantūngī (#1267). In the Malay world nisba are often carefully Arabized to avoid using Jawi letters not found in Arabic, hence the form al-Falimbānī to indicate origin from Palembang, but as the example al-Cantūngī shows this is not always the case. Even in this first group, in most of the seals the use of nisba reflects a high degree of religiosity, for example there are five late-19th century seals with the nisba al-Tirāwī, belonging to the circle of religious scholars from Tiro in Aceh.
The second and much larger group of seals bearing nisba are those which, judging from their iconography and calligraphy, can be identified as probably having been made in Hijaz, either for newly-arrived pilgrims from the Malay world or for resident ulama. These seals tend to be relatively small circles or wide ovals, with very competent cursive inscriptions, and are similar in appearance to contemporaneous Ottoman seals. Included in this category are 63 seals of pilgrims from Aceh and Kerinci found on a single document, a petition in Arabic to the Ottoman authorities complaining of the Dutch treatment of pilgrims from Sumatra. 57 Nearly all the seals are uniform in size and are dated 1289 (AD 1872/3), and bear the toponymic nisba (not all prefixed by al-) Asyi (Ashī) or Karinsyi (Karinshī). As indicated above the majority of nisba on Malay seals indicate geographical origin or regional affinity, but a small number also reflect membership of sufi tarekat, of which the most prominent is al-Khālidī, found on eight seals from Batu Bahara, Rokan, Riau, Penang and Sumbawa. Also encountered are al-Naqshabandī on four seals, and al-Qādirī and al-Rifā'ī. A nisba indicating adherence to a school of law (madhhab), al-Shāf'iī, is found on five Malay seals. Some seals may give more than one nisba, and, as reported above, Sultan Abu al-Nasr Muhammad Arif Zainal Asyikin of Banten included four nisba on his seal.
The only actual mention of the word nisba on a Malay seal occurs in the silver seal matrix of Teuku Muda Nyak Baya from Aceh, which is inscribed: Inshā' Allāh ta'ālā inilah alamat Teuku Muda Nyak Baya nisba Teuku Imam Chik ["If God Almighty wills it, this is the sign of Teuku Muda Nyak Baya [known as] Teuku Imam Chik"] (#1381). In this case the term nisba appears to have been used simply to refer to the title of the seal owner, reflecting a pragmatic awareness of the function of the nisba as an identifying descriptive epithet.

APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF MALAY MUSLIM ONOMASTICS
The information presented here was first collated in my doctoral dissertation, 58 at a time when little recent work had been carried on Malay naming systems, and observations were therefore based solely on the pre-war and earlier studies referenced above. In the past decade, however, several detailed studies of Malay onomastics have appeared.
In 2004, Lau-fong Mak published an article in the Taiwan Journal of Anthropology on "Naming and collective memory in the Malay Muslim world", a study of Malay onomastics from an anthropological and sociological perspective, seeking to investigate naming systems viewed as a society's "memory-perpetuating mechanism". 59 His study was based on three sources of data: modern telephone directories, contemporary genealogies of up to four generations of 176 Muslim males collected through fieldwork in six Southeast Asian countries, and a published volume on royal genealogies of Southeast Asia. 60 With some reservations, 61 Mak's study highlights a few aspects of interest in Malay naming practice for further analysis. Given the relatively low number of the most popular male Muslim names in circulation and their frequent use across generations, he notes the distinct absence of familial traditions for certain preferred names, which in many societies is a recognized strategy for perpetuating collective lineage memory, which he interprets within the Malay Muslim context as "partly because what the names are intended to perpetuate is not a lineage but brotherhood across lineages", namely the ummah. 62 Mak certainly overstates the matter in classifying Ali, Hasan and Husain as "Shiite names" and relating the use of these to perpetuating the memory of Karbala, 63 for as Anne-Marie Schimmel has noted these names are popular in both sunni and shia circles all over the Muslim world. 64 But within the constricts of his dataset, Mak's research does appear to throw up certain patterns in the use of this cluster of names, with an apparent preponderance in Aceh, Kelantan, Terengganu and Brunei, and amongst the small Muslim minority in Bali. 65  The second study is by William Roff, whose article "Onomastics, and taxonomies of belonging in the Malay Muslim world" was published in the Journal of Islamic Studies in 2007. Within the context of the historical study of the onomastics of the Muslim world, Roff presents the problem of investigating Islamic naming systems in Southeast Asia without the type of data available on the medieval Middle East found in Arabic biographical dictionaries, as documented in the Onomasticum Arabicum project. 66 For his own study, Roff utilised three computerised datasets, compiled from the indexes of personal names in three publications: 73 names from the Sejarah Melayu, 856 names from the Tuhfat al-Nafīs, and 203 names from Roff's own bibliography of Malay and Arabic periodicals published in Singapore and the Malay peninsula from 1876 to 1941. 67 On the basis of these three sources he made some preliminary remarks, first and foremost that "as certain onomastic elements employed in the Middle East are wholly or largely absent in Southeast Asia, we may have to recognize that Southeast Asian Muslims, though certainly Muslim, are not Arab". 68 Roff highlights the dearth of genealogical information (nasab) in the Sejarah Melayu, but the increasing availability of this onomastic element in names in the Tuhfat and the newspaper sources. He also notes the almost total absence of kunya and nisba in the Malay chronicles, but documents a small but significant use of nisba amongst Malay intelligentsia in literary and press circles at the turn of the 20th century.
Most recently, in the context of his investigation into the name of the quintessential Malay culture hero Hang Tuah, the Laksamana (admiral) of Melaka, Ahmat Adam has revisited the ethnographic literature on taboos around names and naming in Malay society. 69 Ahmat explores the reasons underlying name taboos, noting that it was believed in some societies that revealing a personal name exposed the person concerned vulnerable to black magic.

CONCLUSION
Studies of Malay names have traditionally drawn upon the same limited pool of sources dominated by the major Malay historical chronicles, while recent studies by  and  have introduced new data from newspapers and telephone directories. The present article draws upon a previously unused resource of over one thousand Malay seals bearing personal names, spanning three hundred years, from the early 17th to the early 20th centuries. It is however important to stress the social parameters of this new resource, for with a high proportion of sovereign seals, and a further substantial corpus of noble seals, this dataset overwhelmingly reflects elite preferences, and has limited use as a source for naming practice within ordinary Malay Muslim communities.
The names found on Malay seals are mainly familiar Arabic-Islamic personal names (ism), the most popular being names borne by the Prophet and early figures from Islamic history, as well as pious laqab or descriptive compound names expressing servitude or devotion to God (referred to by one of His Beautiful Names) or religion, al-dīn. Other standard elements of Middle Eastern naming practice, such as the kunya and nisba, are not generally found on Malay seals. The exception is in Banten, where, unusually for Southeast Asia, all regnal names found on seals include a kunya, ism and laqab, and often a nisba.
Mak commented on the distinct absence of preferred names within families in the Malay world. This scenario is confirmed in Malay seals, except in the case of Kelantan, where all rulers of the present dynasty bear the same regnal name, Muhammad. On the other hand, many Southeast Asian kingdoms show evidence of dynastic patterns for regnal names, from Sultan Abū al-X Muḥammad Y Zayn al-Z in Banten to Sultan 'Abd al-Jalīl Y al-Dīn in Siak. Seals also reveal evidence of naming "trends" in certainly places and at certain times; for example there appears to have been a preference for names expressing devotion to the Prophet in the kingdoms of Sumbawa in the 18th century.
In highlighting the general absence of kunya and nisba in Malay names, Roff concluded that while Malays -and other Southeast Asians groupswere indubitably Muslim, they were not Arab. However, names found on Malay seals are more usually of Arabic origin than those found in written Malay texts, where timang-timangan predominate. The use of a formal Islamic-Arabic name on Malay seals should be interpreted in the context of the image of self which the owner of a Malay seal wished to project to the outside world, in which his or her Islamic identity, and membership of the universal ummah, was the single most significant component. In the pursuit of this ideal, to a greater or lesser extent in different states, local characteristics were subsumed in Malay seals, compared with other indigenous written sources.

EPILOGUE
So profound and manifold are the meanings, implications and associations of names all over the world that most studies of onomastics invariably include a variety of personal anecdotes to illustrate attitudes towards names in a society. 70 I would therefore like to end this article with an encounter which to me evoked vividly the multiple personas associated with different names in the Malay world.
While gathering material in November 1999 for my Ph.D. in that incomparable treasurehouse of Malay documents, the National Archives in Jakarta, a fellow researcher in the Reading Room became interested in the material I was looking at, and approached me to ask what I was working on. When I explained that I was investigating seals, he introduced himself as Daniel Bunggulawa from Kendari in Southeast Sulawesi, and mentioned that he had two seals of his great-grandfather. He thereupon produced his wallet, and carefully brought out a small piece of paper stamped with the two small seals shown in Figure 6. One was in the name of al-Haj Abdul Ghani (#1154), while the other was inscribed Haji Abdul Latifu / HADJI ABDULATIPOE (#1155). But then Bapak Daniel explained further that these were only two of his great-grandfather's six names, each for use within a different context, and he wrote these down for me: H[aji] Abdul Gani (ulama); Haji Abdu Latif (nama pemerintahan); Haji Laasamana (nama daerah); Haji Taata (nama penghormatan dari Wawonii); Tuan Haji/ Tua Hadi (nama umum); Doworo (gelar). 71 Thus his great-grandfather's name as a religious scholar was Haji Abdul Ghani, but his name for official purposes was Haji Abdu Latif; in his home district he was known as Haji Laasamana, but he had also been granted the honorific appellative of Haji Taata from Wawonii (an island off the coast of Southeast Sulawesi, to the north of Buton); but he was most commonly known as Tuan Haji or Tua Hadi, while his title was Doworo. In analysing these multiple names of Daniel Bunggulawa's grandfather, a connection could be posited between the two Arabic names, Abdul Ghani ('abd al-Ghanī, "servant of The Independent One") and Abdul Latif ('abd al-Latīf, "servant of The Most Pleasant One"), in that there was a common belief that all names of the form Abdul ('abd al-) followed by one of the Most Beautiful Names (al-asmā' al-husnā) were essentially synonymous, all having the meaning "servant of God". 72 Yet aside from this linkage, without external corroboration, it would have been a difficult task to confirm that all these names and titles referred to the same person.
Therefore the main message to arise from this encounter is that an individual in the Malay world might have a wide range of appellatives, and that the number of these names and titles would probably increase in tandem with the person's status and responsibilities. But in the context of this sigillographic study, more significant is the confirmation that of the manifold names and titles a person might bear, the names to be found inscribed on Malay seals will most likely relate to two main public spheres: the official governing structure of the polity, and circles of religious scholarship.