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BR

Fig. 1 - Old Arabic graffito featuring _br_ ‘son of’ (top line, third word from the right), 528 CE, Jabal Says, Syria - [Academia](https://www.academia.edu/4423149/The_Old_Arabic_graffito_at_Jabal_Usays_A_new_reading_of_line_1). — Fig. 1 - Old Arabic graffito featuring br ‘son of’ (top line, third word from the right), 528 CE, Jabal Says, Syria - Academia.

This word, probably read as bar, means ‘son of’ in Aramaic. You may know it from New Testament names like Barabbas (‘son of Abba’) and Bartholomew (‘son of Tolomai’) or from the Jewish term for a boy who has turned 13 and is now expected to follow Jewish law, a Bar Mitzvah (‘son of the commandment’). Writing BR for ‘son of’ was such a deeply ingrained habit that it continued to be done in Arabic texts up to the early Islamic period, even though the Arabic ʾibn for ‘son’ does not contain an -r!