Yunus

Yunus is the Arabic and Turkish form of Jonah, the prophet who was swallowed by the great fish and delivered back to the shore — a story the Qur'an devotes a full sura to, the tenth in its arrangement. The thirteenth-century Anatolian mystic Yunus Emre gave the name a second life, composing folk hymns that still anchor Turkish Sufi poetry seven centuries on. Two soft syllables close on a whispered s, the whole thing unshowy and interior. The name is widely used from Morocco to Indonesia, and the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus brought it into global conversation. A gentle name, contemplative, for a child with an inward cast of mind.