What is in a Name?
I recently came across a name Justine Patel that stirred a few thoughts in my mind. After all, name conveys some social information about a person, conjuring up an idea a person based upon our common knowledge. Most of the patels that I have come across in my life have been Hindu Patels with Hindu names with a few exceptions who had a Muslim name. Is he an offspring of a mixed marriage between and Indian and an American. Is he a Christian? Or his parents named him or he chose the name Justine solely because of convenience of pronunciation by mainstream Americans. Or he simply wants to identify himself as an American, hiding or diminishing his Indian identity.
A person’s identity is woven around his name. As early as 8 months of age an infant recognizes its name. All attributes, achievements and aspirations of a person are linked to his or her name. Realizing the centrality of name as the conveyor of ancestral, cultural and religious information, the parents plan meticulously about the name since a child is conceived.
In India names used to be given collectively by the parents and grandparents after consulting the family astrologer who will often prescribe the first letter. They followed the Vedic injunction that the name should have a meaning and convey some semiotic information about the person (naam abhipraayakum). Depending upon the region one came from, name would convey information about the region, grandparents, religion or/and caste.
When I was a child Hindi Hindu names used to have a middle name that complimented or expanded the meaning of the first name - enlighten the world with the name of God or Om, Prakash, or adorn the family, Kul, as an ornament, Bhushan or Lal, or a servant of God, Ram, Das or Dasi; or a gift of God, Rameshawar, Prasad, or clarify that the child was a boy, Kumar or a girl, Kumari. The girls used to be Rani, queen; goddess, Devi, or Bala, a young girl. Boys were very often Indras or kings, of people, Narendra, of kings, Rajendra or simply big Indra, Mahendra. Families often followed a convention in that every male child would be a das, Bhushan, Kumar or Prakash and every female child will be a Prabha, Rani or Kumari. Gods figured very prominently in names, an easy method of chanting God’s name for his benediction. Ram, Krishna, Gopal, Mohan, Radha, Sita Ganesh, Subramanium, and Om were ubiquitous. Mythological characters, of course, the virtuous ones, were common, Arjun, Yudhister, Balram, Bhishma, Draupadi, Savitri and Damayanti. Female Hindu saint Meera was very popular. Tamil Hindu names were even more magnanimous such as Arumgathamudhu Thambapillai. Parents’ names or the village names used to figure as middle names - as in Mohan Das Karma Chand Gandhi. Although parents symbolized their aspirations in naming their child, a few children belied their expectations, becoming the butts of humorists’ jokes as a child named Bhima turned out to be wimpy. Some were embarrassed by the names given by their parents because they were not contemporary or unknown. The former included names from an older era such as Nathu Ram or Bhagwan Das in sixties. A classical example of the latter was Gogol, the protagonist of Namesake who was embarrassed by the name given by his father. Protestant Christians confounded the field of names by using Indian language names as first or middle names with or without a biblical middle name. For example L. Laksman Sathyan, a Hindu-sounding name, could actually be Lazarus Laksman Sathyan.
As with everything in India, names started changing after independence. A seismic shift occurred in society’s mindset. While in the past tradition was sacrosanct and parents and grandparents maintained and passed it on, deviating from tradition became a sign of modernity and progress. Instead of God, the attributes of God and nature became popular; Shashi, Shanti, Raksha, Usha, Nisha, Sheila, Prabhakar, Amitabh, Divakar, Naveen. Politicians like Jawahar Lalji or Subhash Chandra Bose started featuring in manes. While in the past Urdu names such as Iqbal or Kabir were used in Hindu families, Hindu names became more Hindi. The middle name was dropped – the first name could convey all the meaning. Bollywood made its dent, as in Dimple or Simple. With liberalization and modernization, names stared becoming even smaller, one syllable, Sanskrit roots, Adi, Abhi, Anu, Ansh, Anya, or at most two syllable words such as Shreya or Priya. Non conventional names such as Neena, Sheena, Tina and Tanya were often heard. God disappeared almost totally from Hindu names. Unlike Muslims and Jews who are adhering or even reverting back to their traditions Hindus shed their traditions like snake’s skin. I even heard a young Hindu relative of mine name her daughter, Mayra (yes, not Mira). She loves America, a heaven she is longing and living for.
As South Asians moved to the USA, names evolved further as the ease of pronunciation or possibility of embarrassing mispronunciation by mainstream society became important considerations. For example, Ashit could be pronounced “ā shit” or “a sheet” (American English is a stressed language). A poignant example of embarrassing shortening of a name occurred for Piscine Molitor Patel, the hero of Life of Pi, who became piss. Hindus are not unique in shortening the names in the USA. Many immigrants from Greece and Eastern Europe shortened their names too. Now names reflect where a family falls on the acculturation spectrum. Those toward the Indian side of the hyphen or multi-culturists look forward to India, their native language or Sanskrit for names while those on the American side, the integrationists, want names that sound American, such as Sheila, Neena, Tina, Maya. In mixed marriages (at least one third of Hindus are having mixed marriages), parents try to mix and juxtapose names from two cultures in given and middle names, such as Gavin Raj Sharma or Sheila Stacey Goldwater. Muslims and Sikhs have more or less kept their names traditional, although American sounding or neutral abbreviations are quite common. Hindus who are on modernity aka Americanism juggernaut have been the most progressive with naming.
The names of our offspring in the USA are going to change like Justine’s, a Hindu Gujarati child, whose mother just liked the name, Justine. To some they will appear confusing because they convey information contradictory to general stereotype as in the case of Justine, while to others, liberating because name will be dissociated from a preconceived notion about a person. What is in a name after all? It is just a linguistic symbol to refer to someone and does it need to convey more information about the referred to others?
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