Belkis is an Arabic form of Bilqis, the traditional name of the Queen of Sheba.
Belkis is the name by which the Queen of Sheba is known in Arabic, Turkish, and broader Islamic tradition — a figure of extraordinary power, wisdom, and mystery who appears in the Hebrew Bible, the Quran, Ethiopian legend, and countless literary and artistic traditions. In Arabic, the name is rendered as Bilqis or Balkis; Belkis is the Turkish and some Sephardic Jewish variant. The Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon, drawn by reports of his wisdom and wealth, is one of the great diplomatic encounters of ancient storytelling — and Belkis, as her name, carries all the weight of that legend: a sovereign woman who traveled across continents, tested a king with riddles, and departed transformed.
In Ethiopian tradition, the Queen of Sheba is called Makeda and is considered an ancestor of the Solomonic dynasty — a lineage traced all the way to Emperor Haile Selassie. This makes the legend not merely literary but dynastic, with living political stakes. In Islamic tradition, she appears in the Quran as the Queen of Saba who converted to monotheism after meeting Solomon, making Belkis a name with profound religious resonance in Muslim communities from Turkey to Morocco to Indonesia.
The Cuban-American poet Belkis Cuza Malé brought the name into 20th-century literary visibility, her work navigating exile, feminism, and Cuban identity with fierce intelligence. As a given name, Belkis is most common in Turkey, among Sephardic Jewish families, and in communities with Middle Eastern heritage, where its royal and spiritual associations are well understood. Outside those communities it is genuinely rare — exotic in the best sense, carrying an ancient story of female sovereignty and intercultural encounter that few names can match.