Say your name | Rayn
Prompt: Write about your first name: Are you named after someone or something? Are there any stories or associations attached to it? If you had the choice, would you rename yourself?
No, that’s not my name. “Rayn” has a story and so does “Narayanan”. Just a months after the 11th of November 1993 I was named “Narayanan”, another name for lord Vishnu, meaning the supreme controller and the ultimate soul. I only realised why this was my name in 1998 when my maternal grandpa died at 5PM on the 11th of November. His name? Narayanan.
Back in those days, the bridegroom’s family used to name the first child and the Bride’s family used to name the second child. Yes, The older one was names Lakshmi -the goddess of wealth and also my paternal great grandma’s name. The younger one, that’s me. Narayanan is a Sanskrit name with many pronunciations depending upon the part of India you belong to. The god’s must be crazy for sure. I was born in South of Delhi in a Tamilian family. Named Narayan‘an’ but always called Narayan, without the ‘an’. Yes, I still face that issue because most of the people around me are North Indians. It was a unique name back in school and every teacher knew me. One, south Indians were a rare species in my school and secondly, the name.
THE CHANGE
A big hand to play in this is that of Zuckerberg’s. Facebook, yes. All of us have had days where we change our names to sound cool right? I wanted to sound very cool and I shortened my name and called myself “Rayan”. Simple, removed the first ‘Na’ & and last ‘an’. But, that didn’t have any meaning it was just a short form and no one really called me that. A couple of years later when I reached from where my name belonged. The change took further effect. Even in Chennai, most of my friends were Hindi speaking and being part of AIESEC made the need for this change even prominent because of the number of Internationals I used to deal with. None of them pronounced or spelt my name correctly and during that phase I was finding my spirituality. At the time, I found it in Islam for some reason. Hence, I started searching for names that sounded like Rayan and something with a deep meaning to it. I stumbled upon “Rayan” which meant one of Islam’s Heaven gates through which only the observers of Ramadan would enter on the Day of Resurrection. That rung a bell and thereon I was called Rayan (spelt Rayn). A lot my friends didn’t know my real name and though I was Rayn. Because Facebook said so, it become more than a name for me. It was my identity and an example of my acceptance of another religion. It has been over 6 years since this happened and I am happy it did. A small Facebook fiasco lead to me finding my spirituality through a name change. Even though a lot of my friends still love to call me Narayanan. I wouldn’t mind anyone jumping to a third one.
That’s all. People say, what’s in a name. I say, there’s a lot behind a name. Not just meaning but the person’s essence. Have you found yours?