Shah (surname)

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Shah (Gujarati: શાહ) is a surname common among people from India. It has its origin in word Shah Saudagar (Shah = Kings, Saudagar = From Sauda = Deal/Trade). It may mean Traders to Kings, or large trading houses.

Over the years it has come to mean that the person or his previous generations were involved in trade, money lending and pawnbroking and were either elite merchants or businessmen. Due to the wide geographical spread of the Gujarati people, there is a joke going around that it is impossible for a telephone directory of any city to be complete without Shah being a part of it. Incidentally the 'Shah' surname runs into hundreds of pages in the Mumbai telephone directory, and probably making it the longest. There is also a trend of using Shah as surname in trading community, in liu of existing surnames.

[edit] List of Surname

List of People having Shah surname.

The surname Shah may refer to:

• Abdullah Shah (died 2004), was the first person executed by the post-Taliban Afghan state.
• Bina Shah is a Pakistani journalist and writer
• Bulleh Shah (c.1680-c.1758), a Punjabi Sufi poet.
• Eddy Shah, a Manchester-based businessman and writer.
• Hemish Shah (1968-2001), an English stock broker and professional poker player.
• Idries Shah (1924-1996), a Sufi writer.
• Jamal Shah, a Pakistani television actor.
• Kiran Shah (born 1956), a Kenyan-born actor and a stuntman.
• Mohammed Ali Shah, an Iranian citizen currently detained at Guantanamo Bay.
• Omar Ali-Shah (died 2005), a prominent exponent of modern sufism.
• Owais Shah (born 1978), a Pakistani-born English cricketer.
• Pooja Shah (born 1979) is a British Asian actor
• Raffique Shah (born 1946), a Trinidad and Tobago trade unionist and politician.
• Rajendra Keshavlal Shah (born 1913), a lyrical poet who writes in Gujarati.
• Ravindu Shah (born 1972) is a Kenyan cricketer.
• Ray Shah (born 1978) was a contestant on the fourth series of the British Big Brother.
• Saira Shah, an English author, reporter and documentary filmmaker
• Sanjay Shah is a former Kenyan national.
• Samir Shah (born 1980) is a professional model and MySpace icon (www.myspace.com/samirshah)
• Satish Beri-Shah was a prominent Indian film and television actor.
• Sher Shah (VC) (1917-1945), an Indian recipient of the Victoria Cross.
• Sitara Shah, an actress who played Parvati Patil in the first three Harry Potter films.
• Wali Khan Amin Shah, an Afghan-born Al-Qaeda member.
• Waris Shah (1719 or 1730–1790), a Punjabi poet