Months in Arabic: Egyptian, Levantine, Maghreb and Hijri month names

Why Arabic has two sets of Gregorian month names

English Wikipedia's article on the Arabic names of the Gregorian months sums up the split. In most countries the names are Arabic pronunciations of the European ones, and the Egyptian forms, used also in Sudan and Yemen, are widely regarded as the standard across the Arab world. Yanāyir is January, fibrāyir February, and so on through dīsambar, each recognisably the Latin name in Arabic sounds. The months in Arabic that appear in newspapers, on phones and in international documents are usually these.

Iraq and the Levant kept older names. The same article explains that Classical Arabic inherited them from the Aramaic names of the Babylonian and Assyrian calendars, and that they now name the Julian and Gregorian months of the Greek Orthodox liturgical calendar. The months in other calendars page shows the Hebrew and other calendars that share this Near Eastern heritage.

The two systems live side by side, and CLDR follows the countries: software set to Arabic for Syria, Iraq, Jordan or Lebanon shows kānūn aṯ-ṯānī, while Egypt and Saudi Arabia show yanāyir. Wikipedia adds that the Gulf countries and Jordan also refer to months by their numbers.

French and Berber traces in the Maghreb month names

In Algeria and Tunisia the month names follow French, a legacy of colonial rule that English Wikipedia dates to 1830–1962 in Algeria and 1881–1956 in Tunisia. Jānvi is janvier, avrīl avril, ūt août, and jwān and jwīlya are juin and juillet. The French v, a sound standard Arabic lacks, is written with the letter fāʾ.

Morocco went another way. Its names, Wikipedia explains, were taken from the local Berber agricultural calendar, which preserved the Julian calendar and the names of its months. That is why August is ġušt and December dujanbir, forms close to Latin augustus and december but unlike either the Egyptian or the French-based set. CLDR prints these names for Morocco, so a phone in Rabat shows yūliyūz for July while one in Algiers shows jwīlya.

Ramadan and the other Hijri months

All Arab states use the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes, the Wikipedia article notes, but the Hijri calendar fixes the religious year. English Wikipedia's article on the Islamic calendar describes it as purely lunar, so each month starts about eleven days earlier in the Gregorian year than the year before. Ramadan, the month of fasting, is the ninth month, and the pilgrimage falls in ḏū l-ḥiǧǧâ, the twelfth.

Four months are sacred in Islamic tradition: raǧab, ḏū l-qaʿdâ, ḏū l-ḥiǧǧâ and muḥarram, the months during which fighting was forbidden. The same article records that Arabs before Islam already set these four apart from the other months of the year. Saudi Arabia has traditionally used the Umm al-Qura calendar for administrative purposes, a version based on astronomical calculation, and the article notes that several Muslim organisations in North America and Europe adopted its parameters in 2007 to fix the start of the months well in advance. CLDR supports it as a separate calendar.

Dates in Arabic put the day first: 3 māris 2026 in the CLDR long format, with the weekday and an Arabic comma before it in the full form. For Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Levant, CLDR writes the digits in Eastern Arabic numerals, which the numbers page lists; for Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco it keeps Western digits.