It is also said that, in the pre-Islamic Jāhiliyyah, his given name was ʿAbd Shams and his kunyah was Abū al-Aswad; the Messenger of Allah ﷺ then changed his name to ʿAbd Allah and called him Abū Hurayrah.
What is widely known is that he received this kunyah because of some wild kittens; he said, “I found them and tucked them into the sleeve of my cloak, so I was nicknamed for that.”
Al-Ṭabarānī states that his mother—may Allah be pleased with her—was Maymūnah bint Ṣabīḥ.
From the Prophet ﷺ he carried an immense, wholesome, and blessed body of knowledge unmatched in its abundance. He also narrated from Ubayy, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, Usāmah, ʿĀishah, al-Faḍl, Basrah ibn Abī Basrah, and Kaʿb al-Ḥibr.
A great many Companions and Successors transmitted from him; it is said that his pupils numbered eight hundred. The author of al-Tahdhīb limited himself to those whose narrations from Abū Hurayrah appear in the collections of the six canonical Imāms, namely:
Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Ḥunayn; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Qāriẓ al-Zuhrī—some say ʿAbd Allah ibn Ibrāhīm; Isḥāq, the client of Zāʾidah; Aswad ibn Hilāl; Agharr ibn Sulayk; al-Agharr Abū Muslim; Anas ibn Ḥakīm; Anas ibn Mālik; Aws ibn Khālid;
Busr ibn Saʿīd; Bashīr ibn Nahīk; Bashīr ibn Kaʿb; Baʿjah ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Juhanī; Bukayr ibn Fayrūz;
Thābit ibn ʿIyāḍ (1); Thābit ibn Qays al-Zuraqī; Thawr ibn ʿUfair;
Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allah; Jabr ibn ʿUbaydah; Jaʿfar ibn ʿIyāḍ; and Jumhān.