Elbostagi Does It Sound Familiar?

byelbostagi

934 followers

10 years ago

Yes you are right. It has to do with the post (office). It is a name given to my father 70+ years ago, when he was young. He happened to be the first and only post man in that small village where he lives. The village is about 8 miles away from the town where the post office is located. He used, during his employment, to cover this distance at first walking and later cycling once or twice a week.

At that time a man with a distinguished bag (mail bag) on him, is an eye catching sight for people in his village and villages between them and town. So they started referring to him as Sulieman (his first name) “Elbostagi”.

“El” or “Al” is the equivalent of “The” the definite article in English. For the word to fit in the language it is borrowed to, the “P” is converted to “B”. Arabic language doesn’t have a “P” sound.

People continued to call him Sulieman Adam Elbostagi even after he was no longer a post man. And hence the name is taken to be like a family name. Now his children, grandchildren and grand grandchildren are having Elbostagi added to their names.

For me Elbostagi is part of my emails user names and more. Most likely if you come across “Elbostagi” that is me or someone can easily be traced to “Elbostagi” senior.

This is my story for those who are interested in finding the link between my given name and my profile user name.

Mohamed Elbostagi