Zuleikha as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Zuleikha

What is the meaning of the name Zuleikha ?

The baby name Zuleikha is a girl name , 3 syllables long and is pronounced zoo-LAY-khah.

Zuleikha is Arabic, Persian in Origin.

Zuleikha is an English transliteration of Arabic Zulaykhā or Zulaikhā, written زليخا; the same form was naturalized in Persian. The earliest literary form is Zulaykhā/Zulaikhā in post-Qur'anic Islamic tradition. It is not a transparent Qur'anic Arabic compound: the Qur'an leaves the woman in the Yusuf narrative unnamed, and later tradition supplies her name. Lexical glosses usually connect it with beauty, brightness, or brilliance, often interpreted as brilliant beauty; the final -ā preserves the long vowel of the classical form.

Its reputation rests chiefly on the Joseph story: in tafsir and later literature, Zuleikha is the wife of the Egyptian official who desires Yusuf. Persian romance, especially Jami's Yusuf u Zulaikhā, recast her as a figure of longing and repentance. Spellings shifted with language and script, producing Turkish Züleyha, South Asian Zulekha, and European Zuleika. In the United States, Zuleikha is rare, with Social Security records from the 2010s onward.