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Rose is a rose by any other name

Or is it? How important are the names in our lives?

You observe the names of shops in any road in Bangalore. Sanskrit(normally gods' names) and English names are in the ratio 50:50 or even 40:60.  Like Nanjundeshwara stores, Lucky book stores etc.

 What about our names? Names of humans?  Most of our names are Sanskrit words with beautiful meanings and many a time not at all related to who we are. My name usha means morning and I never get up in morning. We see Shanta (Calm) who shouts at her children and spouse 24 by 7.  We also see Sundar (Beautiful ) who will not be so sundar.

In our district Karwar, many of the names will be those of Lord Ganesha. Like Ganesha, Gajanana, Vinayaka, Ganapathi. Every house will have them. My uncle is Gajanana, my cousin is Vinayaka, two of my husband's nephews are Ganapati's, my husband's niece's husband is Vinayaka, my brother in law is Vinayaka.

Next to him, comes the name Mahabaleshwar. My grandapa's name is Mahabaleshwar. Incidentally my grand mother was Bhavaneshwari. We had a neighbor who was also Mahabaleshwara and his wife was Bhavaneshwari. My cousin is again Mahabaleshwara. But no, he is not married to Bhuvaneshwari.

Well, our ancestors had a reason for naming their children after Gods. Whenever they called the children, they would recite his name and get some punya to their credit. But what would have happened, when they added some adjectives to the name in anger, I am not sure. You might have heard of a man who was very bad, and never helped anyone in his life, beat his servants, hurt his family etc. But still he goes to heaven instead of hell. Some one questions God about this faulty justice to which God says "He called my name thrice before dying". Incidentally this bad man had a son called Narayana. And on the death bed the man felt lot of pain and called his son for help. So we have simple route to heaven. Name your children after Gods.


My son is Pradyoth. But I call him rarely by that name. Most of the times, he is Putta. Some times he is maani and any other names which come to my mind. This putta is so tall that, if I need to oil his hair, I should ask him to sit down.

Another custom in our place is to call the eldest daughter Koosu - girl and eldest son Maani -boy. Many times, these names stick. Our neighbor in the village is called Maani anna , many of us do not know his original name. And some other lady is called koosatte, koosajji etc.

The improved version of maani and koosu is tamma (younger brother) and tangi (younger sister). If some one tells you that tangi has gone to college, he is talking about his daughter not his sister. Again these names sound funny when these children grow up. One of our uncles who used to call his youngest brother tamma, had a difficulty when his son was born. Fine now son is called sanna (small) tamma.

I have not yet mastered the terminologies used in my husband's house. My sis-in-law's husband is Anna. Anna, why because he is attige's husband, right? 

These Bengalis will have dual names it seems. shubho namo and another one (ashubho namo ;-) One meaningful and another meaningless. What an idea!!!

And there are rhyming names. If one child is named with A as first letter, the second should also be named with A. A collegue was telling about his uncle, who named his children Som, Mangal, Budh etc. If there are 8th and 9th children did he name them as Rahu and Kethu? We don't know. Instead of days of week, if you name your children after month names, you can plan for 12 of them!!!

Consider the names of shops. I see everyday a beauty parlor called Georgeous beauty parlor. (It was painted in Kannada and hence took me some time to realize the meaning). The medical shop is called, Sanjeevini pharma (Sanjeevini is immortal). Good again. An eye hospital is called Divyadrishti eye hospital. Isn't it stretching the things too far!!!

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