Jamal

Jamaal (Arabic: جمال Jamaāl/Jamal/kamāal ) is an Arabic masculine given name, meaning "beauty", and a surname. It is used in the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and predominantly Muslim countries in South Asia. It is also used amongst African Americans and some Turkic peoples.

In Egypt, the name is pronounced [ɡæˈmæːl] and as such is normally transliterated Gamal. Tunisians and Somalis may spell it Jamel or Jamal. Algerians spell it Djamel. Somalis mainly spell this name as Jamaal. In Turkish, the name is transliterated as Cemal, in Albanian as Xhemal (though not to be confused with Shamil), and in Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian as Džemal or Ćemo.

Notable people with the given name Jamal (and other spelling variants)

• Jamal Abro (1924–2004), Pakistani Sindhi writer
• Jamal Adams (born 1995), American football player
• Jamal Agnew (born 1995), American football player
• Jamal Anderson (born 1972), American football player
• Moses Michael Levi Barrow (born Jamal Michael Barrow; 1978), better known by his stage name Shyne, Belizean rapper and politician
• Jammal Brown (born 1981), American football offensive tackle
• Jamal Carter (born 1994), American football player
• Jamal Crawford (born 1980), American basketball player
• Jamal Dajani (born 1957), Palestinian-American journalist, producer and writer
• Jamal Edwards (1990–2022), British entrepreneur
• Jamal El-Haj (born 1960), Swedish politician
• Jamal Fyfield (born 1989), English footballer
• Jamal Greene (fl. 1990s–2020s), American legal scholar and Professor of Law at Columbia Law School
• Jamal Al Hajj (born 1971), Lebanese footballer
• Jamal Hamdan (born 1958), Lebanese actor and voice actor
• Jamal Idris (born 1990), Australian rugby player
• Jamal Khashoggi, a US-Saudi man murdered in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey
• Jamal Khwaja (1926–2020), Indian philosopher
• Jamal Lewis (American football) (born 1979), American football player
• Jamal Lewis (footballer) (born 1998), Northern Irish footballer
• Jammal Lord (born 1981), American football player
• Jamal Malyar, Pakistani politician, leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement
• Jamal Mashburn (born 1972), American basketball player
• Jamal Mayers (born 1974), Canadian ice hockey player
• Jamal Mohamed (born 1984), Kenyan footballer
• Jamal Murray (born 1997), Canadian basketball player
• Jamal Musiala (born 2003), footballer
• Jamal Mustafa, American wrestler (better known by the ring name Mustafa Saed)
• Jamal Nebez (1933–2018), Kurdish linguist and mathematician
• Jamal Peters (born 1996), American football player
• Jamal Phillips (born 1979), American rapper, member of Illegal and Def Squad
• Jamal Robinson (born 1973), American basketball player
• Jamal Robinson (American football) (born 1993), American football player
• Jammal Shahin (born 1988), English footballer
• Jamal Williams (born 1976), American football player
• Jamal Woolard (born 1975), American entertainer
• Jamal Zougam (born 1973), 2004 Madrid train bombings suspect
• Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970), Egyptian revolutionary, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952
• Jamal, stage name of Eddie Fatu or Umaga (wrestler) (1973–2009), Samoan wrestler

Notable people with the surname Jamal (and other spelling variants)

Surname

• Ahmad Jamal (1930–2023), American jazz pianist and composer
• Ahmed Jamal (born 1988), Pakistani cricketer
• Amir H. Jamal (1922–1995), former Tanzanian Minister of Finance
• Ammar Jemal (born 1987), Tunisian footballer
• Jules Jammal (born 1932-1956), Syrian military officer
• Khan Jamal (1946-2022), American musician
• Maher Jamal, Syrian politician
• Noel Jammal (born 1990), Lebanese race car driver
• Razane Jammal (born 1987), Lebanese actress
• Sophie Jamal (born 1966), Canadian scientific fraudster

Fictional characters

• Jamal Lyon, one of the main protagonists of the Fox show Empire
• Jamal Malik, protagonist in the film Slumdog Millionaire
• Jamal Jenkins, main character in the PBS show Ghostwriter (TV series)
• Jamal Grant, main character in the NBC show City Guys
• Jamal Al-Fayeed, main antagonist of the FX show Tyrant (TV series)
• Jamal Wallace, main character of the film Finding Forrester
• Jamal, a supporting character in the video game Sonic Unleashed
• Jamaal, a main character in the Herb and Jamaal comic strip

See also

• Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook, 1954), American convict
• Jamal ad-Din (disambiguation)
• Jamaal
• Jamahl
• Jamali (given name)
• Djamel