The Naming Convention : Thoughts of a Mother-to-be
The same day that at work I was asked if my client has a naming convention for the search accounts and campaigns, I thought of writing down this blog post — so relevant and so-not-wrong! And I have to give credit to our dear friend, Swapnil Bahekar who suggested this topic in the first place.
Well, so here it goes.
Naming a child is a monumental decision, something that will be the identifier for his/her whole life and beyond! You can’t rush into this one. Therefore, we have a few parameters -
- It should have a meaning
- It should be easy to pronounce by majority across the globe
- It should be a Hindi / Hindu name
- It should be short and smart
- It should not have any double meanings or bad connotations elsewhere
- It should not be too common
- Bonus points — if it has the letters ‘A’ and ‘R’ — yes we are very self absorbed in that way!
Critical point to note — This is that one decision in your life when you and your spouse have equal veto rights. If one says no, the other needs to try really hard and get them onboard, else it is a NO.
And hence this saga began.
It should have a meaning : Hell yeah! I have grown up in a culture where every name has a beautiful meaning. For example — Ananya means Unique and Rahil means Innocent. Hence, we want to continue this tradition plus the scribe / poet in me which judges a song not by its music but by its lyrics meant I need a well-meaning name for life. And with no offense to any other cultures, I am not inclined towards naming my kid after my dad, grandmother etc or after some God and his dad or his grandmother and so on, you get my point, right?
It should be easy to pronounce by majority across the globe : For all the people who have moved from their home country to foreign lands, they know this pain. From being called Anaaanya, Aynana, Anya or Rahul, Rahiiiiil, Ahil (in france) — not making this up! (They call Renault as Enno in french and hence, Ahil). And then there is the extremes such as Vir Das, getting called Weird Ass. Basically, the key is KISS — Keep it simple, silly! And sooo complicated to arrive at! — rolling my eyes at the irony
It should be a Hindi / Hindu name : FYI — Rahil is an atheist and I am not a staunch believer of religion. I am religious by convenience i.e. I believe in only doing as much is convenient for me or to my modern mind. You will not see me fasting on all those Mondays, Saturdays and choti diwali, choti holi, poornima (insert-any-big-small- festival here) but you will see me fasting on Karva Chauth — half for the fear and half for fun, plus it is only once a year and I can handle it. But I find solace and strength in praying and in believing that there is a higher power that gives me hope and keeps me on the righteous path, somewhat like karma. Therefore, I want to stick to my religious roots and keep a name that is a meaningful word in Hindi, my mother tongue. The other reason is the fear of discrimination, say whatever, but sadly the world today has quite a bit of Islamophobia and names with Urdu or Arabic etymology (such as Kabir or Samar etc.) have known to be given a hard time. Remember, ShahRukh Khan (the world famous Bollywood star) getting detained at the Los Angeles Airport every time only because his name is Khan! By the way, this also comes from personal experience because of Rahil’s name (although it is of Hebrew origin) it is also popular amongst the muslims and just because of Rahil’s appearance & name, he has been stopped for “random” unwarranted security checks several times. Similarly for Christian names, the names are beautiful but if we, an Indian couple have a child with a christian name, it makes us sound very wannabe. We don’t want to be known as “Oh, look they think they are so cool” — mostly overheard in Indian gossip circles. Best to stick to our Hindi-Hindu names, closer to home, identity and closer to our hearts:)
It should be short and smart : This one is just some generational change, our grandparents had long and weighty (dumdaar) names such as “shakuntala”, “urmila” — gorgeous names named after popular epic characters. Then was the age for us and our parents, where the names became slightly shorter — Vibha, Brijesh or similar sounding for sibling sets — Ananya-Saumya or Rahil-Sahil. And now names are short like Anya or Ahaan giving it a manageable and a smart feeling.
It should not have any double meanings or bad connotations elsewhere : This is tricky! So who knew the name for greetings in hindi ‘Hardik’ would become infamous in the western world. Or as my mum suggested, the name ‘Aryan’ to us without realizing that Hitler’s agenda called for the Aryan supremacy. Sitting and writing this in Europe, adds a layer of perspective around the sensitivities of all the cultures around.
It should not be too common : I say this one with the chances that I will definitely offend a few people because their name is so common — that again proves my point. With common names, I feel either the parents were too lazy or had a solid-solid liking to the name — maybe they knew someone who changed their life and needed to commemorate them, well in that case, that person’s parents were lazy. Or maybe (as my Belarusian friend pointed out) — those parents might just be keeping it simple to avoid the mis-pronunciations or double meaning complications! :) Now, we are all well aware of such plethora of names in India — Pooja, Shweta, Priyanka and Rahul, Manoj, Om, Deepak etc and sorry all my friends, but this dialogue is there for a reason —
Bonus points — if it has the letters ‘A’ and ‘R’ — yes we are very self absorbed in that way! This is just an add on, it would be so nice to name your kid with some components of your name. I know of lovely examples of Anya from my darlings : sister & BIL — Saumya-Anuj, Prisha from the parents Supriya — Akshay (who are my very dear friends) or Anaesha from Shachish-Anchal, another loving couple who had their baby gift recently delivered to them!
The Saga continues…Hmpf, 5 months to go and our search is on. If you have any good suggestions that fit the above criteria, we would highly appreciate your recommendations and will be indebted to you for life, if yours is the CHOSEN ONE!
