WHAT'S IN A NAME

In my Dad's days, names of people used to be typical. Kalyani, Karthyayini, Ammukkutty, Parukkutty and so on would be usual among girls/women. The male names would sound more masculine: Karunakaran, Krishnan, Radhakrishnan, Balakrishnan, Ravindran and so on. People never used to give so much relevance to the variety, but insisted on grandpa's or illustrious uncle's name for males; so would the females inherit their grandma's or aunt's name. These names used to be functional and meaningful, yet not very individualistic. Naturally, if you call out for a Radha especially in a crowded occasion like a marriage, several Radhas would answer the call, in this particular case, even males ( Radhakrishnan's short form is 'Radha'). I hailing from God's own Country, my treatise on names is insular to Kerala. My dad used to tell a popular anecdote in which he narrates about a poet laureate of his youth and father of half dozen children. Those days it was conventional to procreate profusely. The poet Patriarch used to name each of his child by a verse in Sanskrit. My dad's close cousin was named thus:

Eshad Vikasitha Kunthasamaana

Smitharuchiraanana Jithaparvana Himakiranan

His coterie of friends still address him "Eshad"!!!

Names among citizens of other nationalities are also interesting. Some are very short like those of the Chinese, while the people of Sri Lanka have very long names, so do the people hailing from Telugu speaking areas in India. Those of the Russian origin would probably end their name in '-ov' while there are many  etc. Some Scots put a Big Mac in front of their names! These have a gaelic origin meaning 'son of'. The Portuguese fancy D'Costa, D'Souza, Da Cunha and so on, while their neighbors prefer names such as Dias, D'Cruz and so on. Some of the African names rhyme with their countries - Mugabe of Zimbabwe!  Yet, on the occasion of a prize distribution ceremony, an American honorary guest called in to give away credits to outstanding students once asked me: "How do you pronounce these tongue twister names right?" 

Uma Thurman is a famous American actress who acted in famous movies like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill Series, while Uma Thomas is member of Kerala Legislative Assembly! 

In my youth, the trend among Hindus was to name single-syllabled names. Binesh, Jinesh, Rinesh, Hinesh etc. would be rhyming quartuplet's name, while Remya, Soumya, Namya, Chamya would naturally be their female counterparts. So many such names sprung up as a result of this fashion. Even the typical Christian names started taking Hindu surnames such as: Rajan Daniel, Sunil Varghese, Ramesh Cherian and many more. Friends and siblings started to call each other by abbreviated names - Praks for Prakash, Rems for Remya, Rams for Rema, goi for Govindan Nair and so on. 

Please don't judge me that I am a racist of sorts, when you read through this; I just meant it as a joke, perhaps a bad one.

I read somewhere, that the female names among females made them disinterested in science and math. So, they argue that, Sally would not be interested in math, while Alex (a female named Alex) would be.

I do have a rather longish name. To help out the non-Malayali associates having to exert themselves to speak out my name, I once told some Arab friends gathered for a party that my name was Menon (I cut the Narendran, my first name and made it just Menon). When I bumped into one of them on the following day, he waved to me as said, "Hi! Mr. Lemon". He must have deduced from my facial expression that there was perhaps a mistake in the name, because he readily corrected to " Mr. Melon" smiling smugly! I would rather have been addressed Lemon I thought, at least it was a great actor's name! Nevertheless, I cheerfully shook his hands and left after a brief exchange of pleasantries. I did not bother to correct him. On another occasion an Asian vendor called on at my office demanding to speak to a Mr. Marinda, at lease that was what it sounded like. The bemused but witty secretary blurted out that there was no Mr. Mirinda nor a Mr. Pepsi there!