One family in Balzan was tal-Ħobż because they ran a bakery. A family in Sliema was tal-Paddy because of an Irish ancestor nobody can now trace. People from Ħamrun are Tas-Sikkina, of the knife. People from Tarxien are Tar-Redus, of the droppings, and they have fought about it within living memory.

The “laqam” is the nickname that told you everything about a Maltese family that a surname never could. It is one of the oldest surviving pieces of Arabic culture in Malta, and it is quietly disappearing.

Do you know yours? Here is the full story.

Somewhere in your family, there is an older relative, a grandmother, a great-uncle, a neighbour who has known your family for fifty years, who calls your family by a name that does not appear on any official document. Not your surname. Not your first name. Something else entirely. Something that has been attached to your family for so long that nobody is quite sure when it started, and sometimes nobody is even sure what it originally meant.

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