Naming Kids and More

How do people name kids? Kings had it easy, as in just repeat the name with a roman numeral to prove that you could count, until a coup removed the last-mentioned numeral from the throne.

Why I was called Rajendra is that a great man turned into our first President, and his name was Rajendra Prasad. We had a brainwave about Prarthana (our first) and were influenced by film stars Pooja (Bhatt and Batra) for our second.

Many surnames emerged from professions- worldwide. What inspires people to still retain a name like Smith I cannot fathom. I like Wodehouse's Psmith idea, for its use of the differentiation strategy. I also like the U.P. style of renaming your surnames or not using them (sometimes to hide your caste)- free-for-all, in other words, like the state itself seems to be.

The feminist version of not changing surnames after marriage is fine, but may lead to confusion about the family tree. Though if there are no trees, families may vanish in due course, so it might not be that important in the longish run.

The weirdest (sur)name I have encountered is 'Cabinetmaker' ; combined with the first name Armaity, even more so.

3 comments:

Sid said...

Interesting! BTW, the weirdest surname I've seen was in Goa and it had something to do with coitus!

Nikita Kumar said...

I was named on a kids store :(

Rajendra said...

Nikita, explains why you are such a loveable kid :)

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