Mahtab

Mahtab means moonlight in Persian, literally the shine of the moon, mah joined to tab. It is the word a poet uses for the silver on a garden path at midnight, and it has been a girl's name in Iran for generations because of that image. Two syllables, mah-TAB, a long opening vowel and a clean consonant close. The name stays in steady use across Iran and the diaspora, almost unknown in English-speaking countries, where it reads fresh and luminous. Mahtab is a weather name, a time-of-night name, soft-edged and self-possessed.