The Saturday Read
‘For most of my life I made my name smaller so English mouths could hold it. Then my daughter asked me to write it in Arabic — and I couldn’t.’
I’m not religious enough for the aunties, not English enough for work, and I’d quietly forgotten the script I was named in. Here are the five reasons I finally wear my own name — and the one check that made it safe to trust.
My name is Yasmin. At school it became “Yas.” At my first job it became “Jas,” because a manager decided that was easier, and I let him, because I was twenty-two and I wanted the job more than I wanted my own name. By thirty I had a version of myself for every room — and none of them sounded like the one my grandmother used.
Then last spring my five-year-old came home from nursery and asked me to write her name in Arabic. Just her name. And I sat there with the pen, and I couldn’t. Not properly. Not the way I’d swear to you it’s meant to look. I’d sanded my own heritage down so smooth that I couldn’t hand it to my daughter.
That’s the night I started looking. Not for jewellery — for proof that the name was still mine. What I found, after a lot of wrong turns, were five reasons this little gold pendant did something I didn’t expect it to. They’re below, in order.
Your name was never meant to be “easy to say.”
The version of your name that fits on a Starbucks cup is the smallest one you own. Your name in Arabic isn’t a translation — it’s the original. The letters lean toward each other; they connect; the whole thing has a shape, not just a sound. Seeing يَاسمين laid in gold did something a printed name never has: it made me feel like the real one had been there the whole time, waiting for me to stop apologising for it.
The Arabic is actually right — and most of them aren’t.
This is the part nobody warns you about. I’d tried before. The cheap ones taught me why you can’t trust them:
- Etsy & Amazon. A font engine prints your letters as separate tiles. Arabic doesn’t work like that — the letters change shape depending on where they sit, and software doesn’t know the rules. One I ordered read like gibberish to anyone who could actually read it.
- The high street. A generic crescent or a “Allah” charm everyone else has. Not your name. Not you.
- The “custom” sites. No one who reads Arabic ever looks at it before it’s cut. The buyer can’t tell. That’s the whole problem.
There’s only one thing that fixes this — and, after all the wrong turns, one small London shop I found that actually does it. A step they call the second read:
How “the second read” works
- You type your name — so far, identical to every other site.
- Then it lands in a real person’s hands in London. They read it the way your grandmother would — every join, every letter.
- Only then does the laser touch the gold. If one letter sits wrong, it doesn’t get made — it gets fixed first.
It sounds like a small thing. It is the entire thing. It’s the difference between wearing your name and wearing a stranger’s guess at it.
See your name in Arabic →Checked by a person before it’s madeYou can wear it everywhere — and never take it off.
A name you only wear on Eid isn’t really yours; it’s an outfit. This is 18K gold over nickel-free steel, with a tarnish guarantee, so it lives on your skin: shower, wudu, gym, work. It doesn’t turn your skin green and it doesn’t ask for special occasions. Mine has been on for seven months. I’ve stopped noticing it’s there — which is exactly the point. And when someone at work does notice and asks, I get to say my actual name out loud. Some days that’s the bravest thing I do.
It comes from someone who understands — not a factory.
Half the “cheaper” necklaces ship from overseas, and the saving vanishes the second a £40 customs charge lands. This is a Muslim-owned shop in London: posted by Royal Mail, arriving in days, in an embossed emerald box. Bought from someone who actually understands what your name in Arabic means to wear — not a machine in a warehouse. And every order quietly sends a meal to a Palestinian family: no slogan, just something the shop does, the same week your name is being checked by hand.
| This | A generic name necklace | |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic checked by a native speaker | ✓ | ✗ |
| 18K gold, won’t tarnish or turn skin green | ✓ | ✗ |
| Ships from the UK — no customs charge | ✓ | ✗ |
| Supports a Palestinian family with each order | ✓ | ✗ |
| Made for your exact name — not a stock charm | ✓ | ✗ |
“I ordered my name at midnight, the night of my grandmother’s funeral. I’d stood at the janazah moving my lips to prayers I don’t really know anymore. This is the first Arabic I’ve owned that I’m certain is spelt right.”
Sumaya, 33 · London · Verified
“Eleven years of being ‘Annie’ at work. I wore this in, someone asked what it said, and I told them my real name out loud for the first time in years. Cried in the office toilets — the good kind.”
Rabia, 29 · Manchester · Verified
“I bought it for myself the day I qualified — my name, in gold, my choice, not waiting for anyone to give it to me. Eight months on, I still catch myself holding it.”
Hana, 34 · Bristol · Verified
It’s £19.90 — and the workshop is closing.
I’ll be honest about why I’m telling you now. The little London workshop that does the second read — the one that checks every join by hand — is winding down. They’re letting the last run go at £19.90 (it was £89.90), and once they stop taking orders, that’s it. No relaunch. Which means the window to get your name done right — not a font’s guess at it — is closing with them.
Your name. In Arabic. Spelt right.
18K gold · checked by a native speaker · emerald gift box
Once they stop taking orders, the shop closes for good.
Make it mine →£19.90 · ships from London · 1 meal donated per order
I gave my daughter her name in Arabic for her last birthday. She wears it on a tiny chain. And when she asks me what mine says, I don’t reach for a pen anymore — I just tip my chin down, and show her. يَاسمين. The original. The whole time it was mine.