Bibliotheca Polyglotta

Popular etymology relates the name to an alleged founder of the city, ʕAbbād. Most probably, however, it is of Iranian origin. One suggestion is that the meaning is ‘coastguard station’ (from Pers āb ‘water’, and the root pā ‘watch, guard’), see DISC below.

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»In medieval sources, and up to the present [20th] century, the name of the island always occurs in the Arabic form ʕAbbādān; this name has sometimes been derived from ʕabbād ‘worshiper’. Balāḏurī (d. 279/892), on the other hand, quotes the story that the town was founded by one ʕAbbād b. Ḥusayn Ḫabiṭī, who established a garrison there during the governorship of Ḥaǧǧāǧ (75-95/695-714). An Iranian etymology of the name (from āb ‘water’, and the root pā ‘watch, guard’, thus ‘coastguard station’) was suggested by B. Farahvašī (“Arvandrūd”, MDAT, nos. 71/72, 1348š./1969: 75-87). Possible supporting evidence is the name Apphana, which Ptolemy (2nd cent. A.D.) applies to an island off the mouth of the Tigris (Geographia 6.7). The 4th-cen¬tury geographer Marcian, who, in general, draws his in¬formation from Ptolemy, renders the name Apphadana (Geographia Marciani Heracleotae, ed. David Hoeschel, Augsburg, 1600: 48). Thus there may have been some grounds for revising the name to Ābādān; the latter form had begun to come into general use before it was adopted by official decree in 1314š./1935 (see, e.g., Kayhān, Ǧoġrāfiyā, I: 77, 111)« – L.P. Elwell-Sutton, “Ābādān, I. History”, in EIr, I/1: 51-53, available online at Encyclopaedia Iranica (as of 15 Feb 2017).

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