What is in a Name? Part-II
Khurshid Alam
In Southern Indian culture where
people are of Dravidian
origin they prefer to be known with the caste and the lineage symbols together they belong to along with the place they are
born in. Pallit Venkat Narasimha Rao, DVH Devi Gowda and NT Rama Rao are such few
names.
Names classify the
gender of the individuals. The names which stand for male gender classify toughness, intelligence, hot temperament and male-machismo are Smith (labour, English origin), Sunny (sun-like bright, English origin), Algernon (one with a moustache, French origin), Ashoke (one without grief, Sanskrit origin), Amit (one without friends, Hindi origin), Dominic (born on Sunday, German origin), Lacklam (war-like, German origin), Leo (lion-like, English origin) and Mangal Pandey (one born on Tuesday, Hindi origin).
The names denoting female gender classify gentleness, beauty, chastity, and coolness. Such names are Agness (chaste, French origin), Charis (grace, Latin origin), Claribel (brightly fair, Latin origin), Edna (pleasant, Latin origin), Hilary (cheerful, English origin), Laura (laurel, English origin), Mohini (attractive. Sanskrit origin), Preeti (loveable, Hindi origin), Saba (morning breeze, Urdu origin), Yasmin (flower like, English and Urdu origin).
In the patriarchal
societies people derive their
second names after the names of their fathers and in matriarchal ones from mothers’ side. Also that when the daughters are given in marriage in the patriarchal societies their second names are shunned of and those of the husbands are taken up as the last names. Seema Das and Kavita Mukherjee became Seema Tripathi and Kavita Bondhopadhya after their marriage respectively.
In multi-cultural societies where miscegenation and inter and intra marriages are common, people are known by the mixers of the first and second names of two poles like Frank Owen Abdulah, Patrick Selim Atiyah, Salma Hayek, Kartina Kaif and Marie Roselyn Bashir etc.
Some people, though few, change their names when grown or drop their second or last names. Amartya Kumar Sen is popularly known as Amartya Sen (with ‘Kumar’ dropped), Piyush Jindal of the US is Bobby Jindal, Avul Pakir Jainalabadin Mohammad Abdul Kalam is APJ Abdul Kalam (with ‘Mohammad’ dropped). In VS Naipaul and Reubin Singh the words Naipaul and Rueben are the Anglicized words of Indian origin.
Thus a name is a file of information delving a lot of realities about a person: we can locate the person with his/her religious, class, caste and lingual associations. The science of names can prove very helpful in investigative purposes as well. A name therefore matters a lot!
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