Talk:Maher

Untitled

you should mention at the top that this is a fairly common Irish last name as to avoid confusion.

Origins

an Arabic surname or first name meaning 'professional'.

Who are the Aromanians? Did the author mean "Armenians"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:243:403:2700:CEB:B8EE:CB17:2BBA (talk) 15:31, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

an Irish surname originating from south-central Ireland. Other spelling variations include Meagher, Mahir, and Mahar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.50.135.32 (talk) 20:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Clan Maher

It is incorrect to speak of a clan when referring to the Mahers as they were actually a sept of O'Carroll of Ely, O'Carroll is thus the clan. Brythonek (talk) 20:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Article needed

The DAB is useful, but an article is needed. We're losing information here. The fact that there used to be so much more in the lead proves that there is interest in the topic. This "cleanup" was far too radical for my taste.

Here is material removed from the lead, plus more from another source.

Irish

Main article: Ó Meachair

Maher (or Mahir, Marr, Meagar, Meagher, O’Maher and O’Meagher) is an Irish surname deriving from the Gaelic O'Meachair, which literally means grandson/descendent of ('O' prefix) the kind, generous or hospitable (Meachair). It is pronounced Mar.

Indian subcontinent

On the Indian subcontinent there are several groups called Mahar, Maher, or Mahaar. In India there is a social group or caste known as Maher, Mer or Nandvanshi, originating in the Gujarat Province; the caste name Maher sometimes became a surname. The Mahaar are a tribe of Jat origin found in Punjab, Pakistan. Mahar, with the meaning of "original inhabitants of Maharashtra", is an Indian caste found largely in that state.

Problem: 1. Are 2 of the 3 groups distinct? The Mer community from historical Gujarat apparently also lives in today's provinces of Sindh and Punjab in Pakistan, where the Mahaar are also located.

2. The Mers can have the surname Maher (as per source). Can the Mahars and Mahaars also have this surname? If yes, add this info. If not, remove them altogether.

Persian

Persian adjective for "professional." See Mahir.

Problem: This has been introduced in a series of edits from 29 August 2014 which starts here, by an anonymous editor (108.180.214.129), who only contributed this one time under this ID, and proved to be sub-standard in many regards. This doesn't mean (s)he didn't speak Persian, or didn't have a source for the Balkan languages (see below).

Southeastern Europe

An individual can be referred or described as "maher" in the language context of Southeastern Europe, in Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin), Gora dialect, Macedonian, Slovene, Romanian and Aromanian, although not used frequently or in everyday language.

Problem: I don't know if the anonymous editor (see above) who introduced this had any source in mind. It's possible that it's all made up and wrong (he/she seemed focused on Persian and Islamic topics and maybe extrapolated too far on the influence of Arabic & Persian in SE Europe). In Romanian there's no "maher", just "mahăr", a slang for "big wig", derived from the German Macher, 'doer', so a powerful person in charge. Does the alleged use in the other languages have the same meaning and origin? Maybe the lack of a source is the reason it was removed? Anyone familiar with any of those languages?

I'm not sure how this can be done, technically speaking (DAB to article).

References

Arminden (talk) 09:48, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Xezbeth, hi. I see you did the cleanup in 2019. Did you base it on formal grounds (junk, doesn't belong on a DAB page), or because you knew some of it was incorrect? As you can see, I'm not into restoring it on the DAB page, but I would like to have whatever material was indeed correct there in an article, not yet clear where. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 10:12, 5 August 2022 (UTC)