“Al-Hashas”: On Identity and Origins of the Name Names reflect history and memory. They are containers of traditions, of hopes and aspirations. This applies to my name as well, my family name in focus here (and we leave my first name, and the family name of my mother, “Azirār” which is Amazigh and literally means “Tall/Long”, for another occasion). My name is poetic when read and pronounced in Arabic, composed of a repeated syllable, the vowel of the second is long, “ā”, written in the Arabic version as an “alif” but not visible in the Latin one: “has-has” – [transliterated as “ḥaṣḥāṣ”] – and not “ha-shas” as it is often…