It was created by orientalist writers like Lovecraft as an "exotic" name and subsequently popularized in the Anglo literatisphere as a stock Arab character name. doesn't really exist in the Arabic-speaking world as an independent name, even if it's become common in western countries.
It comes from the word "abd" (عبد) in Arabic, which means servant or slave, combined with "ul" or "al" (ال), Arabic's only definitive article. "Al" can also express possession. It's often used as part of theonyms like Abdallah, meaning literally "servant of God," or like Kareem Abd-ul-Jabbar's name which means "servant of the mighty."
This post brought to you by a high person taking a week off work
Damn, my bad comrade. I could have sworn one of the first known uses of Abdul in English was Lovecraft's Abdul Alhazred character. I'll edit the post to take that out.
Abdul Alhazred was apparently a punny nickname Lovecraft gave himself as a youth in reference to his love of books
Eesh. :visible-disgust:
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Of course, and I should have considered that before I labeled something not a "real" name. Very bad prescriptivist habit.