Sha’ab
شعبReef
The single most common element in Red Sea dive site names. If a site begins with Sha’ab, it is a reef rather than a bay or a wreck.
Sha’ab Abu Nuhas · Sha’ab El Erg · Sha’ab Samadai
Almost every dive site and half the towns on this coast are named in Arabic, and six words make the whole map readable. Sha’ab Abu Nuhas stops being a noise and becomes “the reef of the father of copper” — which, given how many ships it has sunk, is a warning rather than a description. Last reviewed 25 July 2026.
Reef
The single most common element in Red Sea dive site names. If a site begins with Sha’ab, it is a reef rather than a bay or a wreck.
Sha’ab Abu Nuhas · Sha’ab El Erg · Sha’ab Samadai
Anchorage, harbour, sheltered bay
A natural inlet a boat can shelter in. On this coast a Marsa is almost always a bay you can enter from the shore — which is why so many of the best snorkelling spots start with it.
Marsa Alam · Marsa Mubarak · Marsa Shagra
Head — a cape or headland
A point of land sticking into the sea. Diving off a Ras usually means current, because headlands accelerate water.
Ras Mohammed · Ras Abu Soma · Ras Ghareb
Father of
Used across Arabic place-naming to mean "the place characterised by" — the thing that follows is what the place is known for. It is not a person’s name.
Abu Nuhas (father of copper) · Abu Dabbab · Abu Ramada
Mother of
The counterpart to Abu, used the same way.
Umm Kharerim · Umm Gamar
A coral pinnacle or tower
In Red Sea diving an erg is a column of coral rising from the seabed, often standing apart from the main reef. A site full of them is usually easy, bright and good for photographs.
Sha’ab El Erg · Erg Somaya · Erg Abu Ramada
Mountain
Inland, in the Red Sea Hills behind the coast. Spelled Jebel elsewhere in the Arab world — the Egyptian hard "g" is why it is Gebel here.
Gebel Elba · Gebel Shayib
Valley, dry riverbed
A watercourse that is dry almost always and a torrent very occasionally. The desert routes inland follow them, and so do the flash floods.
Wadi El Gemal · Wadi Hammamat
Well
Water in the desert, and therefore the reason a place exists at all. Many inland names on the old caravan routes are Bir-something.
Bir Shalatein
The
The definite article, attached to the following word. It is why the same town appears as Gouna, El Gouna and Al Gouna — all the same place.
El Gouna · El Quseir · Al Ghardaqa
Where a derivation is contested we say so. Several popular explanations for Red Sea names are folk etymology repeated between guidebooks, and we would rather leave a gap than fill it with a good story.
From ghardaq, a hardy salt-tolerant desert shrub that grew here. The town is named after a bush — a fair description of what was on this coast before the oil and the tourism.
The lagoon. Fitting for a town built around dug waterways, though the name came first.
Grass plain — sahl is a flat plain, hasheesh is grass or dry scrub.
The short one. Most likely referring to the shortest crossing point to the Arabian side.
Contested. Often linked to the Greco-Roman port of Philotera thought to be nearby, but the modern name’s derivation is not settled.
Most likely "anchorage of the sign or marker" — alam means a flag, sign or landmark. Widely repeated, but the derivation is not documented with certainty.
The Arabic word for peridot. The island was mined for the gem in antiquity and is named after what came out of it — one of the few place names on this coast that is simply a mineral.
El Akhawein — "the two brothers". Two small islands, and an unusually literal name.
Father of copper. Named long before the modern wrecks, and a warning rather than a description — the reef has been sinking ships for centuries.
The English name is from the Greek myth, given by British surveyors. Its Arabic name, Abu el-Kizan, means "father of the jars" — for the pot-shaped coral formations.
Named by British surveyors after a colonial administrator. Locally it is Sha’ab Abu Hamra — the reef of the red one.
Origin unclear. The name predates the tourism and no convincing derivation is settled.
Want the words people actually say?
About thirty words of Egyptian Arabic, organised by the moment you need them, are on our Arabic page — including the one phrase that ends an unwanted sales conversation cleanly.