Ravan and 1,34,000 Rams like this
Mythology Series Part III: Epic characters and their popularity as baby names
In a usual pointless whatsapp chat, my friends and I were talking about the uniqueness of the name of Madam President Droupadi Murmu. The conversation then meandered into the larger concept of naming children after mythological characters.
We all knew a couple of Meghnads (Saha and Desai being two famous ones) but no Vibhishans. Everybody knows or is an Arjun, while none of us knew a Bhim personally. Our inflamed curiosity needed access to a large enough people name database and a person with motivation and time.
I fulfilled the latter need.
However, a structured database of Indian names is hard to find. There are voter lists and exam results, but these are unstructured and required an amount of code that none of us could write. So, it was time to improvise.
Linkedin has ~87mn users in India¹. And when queried with a “first name” and India location (to remove similarly spelt foreign variations), it throws up a count along with the list.
Voila.
I chose a convenient list of names from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and a few other top bill Gods. I also included common spelling variations like Ram / Rama, Bhim/ Bheem/ Bheema/ Bhima, etc. (below, you will see these clubbed with the most frequent spelling). And got to work.
Some Obvious Outcomes…
Krishna is by far the most common name. Ram stands second — perhaps many suffix ‘Ram’ with something, but I had to keep the rules tight.
Among the Pandavas, Arjun wins hands down. Nakul gets his due as a distant second. He is closely tailed by Bhim, which is the most frequent spelling of the name. With a mere 80 hits, Yudhisthir trails Sahadev as well. So much for following the path of Dharma all his life.
Among Ram’s brothers, Bharat finishes a fighting second — of course being adopted as the country’s Hindi name (albeit due to a different Bharat) has helped its cause. Both Bharat and Bharath are popular, the latter being the spelling of choice in the southern states.
The least common names from my list were Kaikeyi and Dhritrashtra, both fetching a lone search entry each. A vile queen and a blind king — no surprises there. Kumbhkaran finishes second from the bottom. Poor guy, he actually had a good heart but one can’t blame parents for not wanting their kids to be sleeping beauties.
…and some surprises!
There are surprisingly few Sitas. Her birth name Janaki seems way more common. Draupadi is a rare name, for now. Perhaps Ma’am President can turn its fortunes — her spelling Droupadi are singularly unique in my search ambit.
Angad edges even Hanuman in popularity. Anecdotally, however, the name Angad is predominantly a Sikh name inspired by Guru Angad Dev ji, the second guru of the Sikhs.
And Bali triumphs over Sugreev.
Kausalya might have been Dashrath’s favorite, but Sumitra takes home the laurels in this list.
And finally a bizarre one — there are over 8 times more Duryodhans than Yudhisthirs. And even more Ravans. God help us!
Time for the final showdown
As I was about to wrap up, I wondered how the names of the holy trinity and their consorts match up against each other.
And here is what I found.
If you had a doubt about the power of wealth, Lakshmi’s dominance would quell those. The more frequent spelling of Saraswathi and Parvathi indicate the goddesses have it better down south.
And Shiva (and the slightly less occurring Shiv) have scaled the heights without the support of the alternates Mahesh, Neelkanth, Shankar etc. Har Har Mahadev.
Well, that’s all that I could gather till my patience and free Linkedin searches lasted.
Until I am back with another story of yore, here’s hoping we live upto the glory of the ones we are named after.
Fin.
Others in this Mythology Series
Part I: The Story behind the OG Chyawanprash
Part II: Ved Vyasa — The Vicky Donor of the Vedic Era
