Agarum has been generally identified with Kuwait's Failaka Island, known as ´KR to the Arameans and as Ikaros during the Hellenistic times.

[3][4] The name Agarum is attested in the earlier half of the 2nd millennium BCE, mentioned in inscriptions of the ancient Dilmun civilization.

In the late 1st millennium BCE, the Aramaic name of Failaka was ´KR — probably standing for Akar, likely a diachronic variant of Akarum.

Ancient Mesopotamian scribes often morphed foreign words in order to render them satisfyingly into their own writing system.

Kings of the Hellenistic Hagar minted coins in the name of Shamash, who may have been the principal deity of the state.

[5] Another interpretation was made in 1880 by sir Henry Rawlinson, who understood the royal texts to indicate that the kings themselves were "of Agarum".

He translated the Agarite royal title as "slave of [the God] Inzak, [Man of the tribe] of Agarum".

The Hellenistic Hagar is further equated with the mediaeval city of Haǧar, or Hofuf, the main urban center of the Al-Ahsa oases.

[14] This hypothesis has been criticized on the grounds that there is a gap of more than a thousand years between the Dilmunite mentions of Agarum and the Hellenistic "king of Hagar".

In fact, the 10th-century Yemeni historian Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani mentions several cities with such a name.