Some people think that jinnah means "wing" in Arabic, but this is incorrect: "wing" in Arabic is janah. The misunderstanding probably comes from the fact that jinnah written in Urdu without the vowels indeed has the same spelling as janah.
The Quaid-e-Azam´s family history has been the subject of much ignorance and – in the alternative – misinterpretation. To set the record straight, if the Quaid had kept all his names as he inherited them, he would have been Muhammadali Jeenabhai Poonja.
As early as 1894, Jinnah had begun to bolster his Muslim credentials by changing his name from Muhammad Ali Jeenabhai to Muhammad Ali Jinnah while studying for the bar in London.
Jeenabhai was his father´s name and it came from the word "jeena", meaning "one who survives", probably given to Jinnah´s father because he didn´t die at birth like his earlier siblings. In Punjab, this name was common in the countryside but today, not even illiterate peasants name their children thus. But in Gujarat, the ancestral home of both Jinnah and Gandhi, the Gujarati language continues with the tradition.