In old times, camels were so integral to Arab society, both urban and nomadic, that Arabs had a whole repertory of names for them, representing the full spectrum of the camel life cycle. Many of these names were used as personal names.

Camels were not the only animals to captivate the Arab imagination and to inspire personal names. Lion, wolf, dog, fox, scorpion, and many other creature names were used as personal names, some for obvious reasons (like "lion"), others for mysterious reasons (like "female dog howling in heat").

The name Fatima was known in pre-Islamic times. Today, however, girls named Fatima are usually given that name in honor of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad.

In some traditional Islamic books, you may find some rather fanciful stories about why Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, was named Fatima. The best that can be said about these stories is that they are imaginative expressions of faith, mostly formulated within the context of sectarian disputations.