Names I Have Encountered

 Of course, there is a big range, so let me take a look, alphabetically.

A -  Ananya, Aditi, Anchal, Arpit, Arpita, Ankit, Ankita, Abha, Anne, Annie, Aashish, Alisha

B- Bindu, Bhuvneet, Bhavana, Bhagya, Bibhuti

C- Chitra, Chitrangi, 

D- Dilip, Devapriya

E- Elango, Eeshita

F- Frane, Fanni (Chinese)

G- Garima, Girish

H- Hamir, Himanshu

I- Ishita, Indira, Ishan, 

J- Jayashree, Juhee, Jaya, Jogeswari

K- Kiran, Kanika, Karnika, Kulbir

L- Lubna, Lakshmi, Laura, Lionel, Leslie (USA)

M- Mohan, Mohini, Meghana, Manasa, Marla, Melinda (USA), Masoud (Irani)

N- Neeti, Narayan, Nishka, Nidhi, Natasha

O- Omana, Om, Oormila

P- Pratima, Padmapriya, Prachi, Pooja, 

Q- Quentin, the film director

R- Rimjhim, Rajan, Rajni, Ramakrishna, Rajhans, Ruminder, Ron

S- Sita, Samudrika, Smita, Shraddha, Sohni, Shruti, Shankar, Sujit

T- Tosha, Tanmeet, Tarika, Tanaya, Tanya, 

U-Uday, Urmi, Upasana, Usha

V- Vandana, Vishwanath, Viral, Venkat, Vaishali

X- Xavier

Y- Yapin (Chinese), Yagnesh, Yogesh, Yugmala

Z- Zenitha, Zahabiah

Interesting Place Names

 Passed a place called Garam Pani today, and a railway station called Lanka yesterday. Also a raliway station called Hojai yesterday. Our local guide to the North East comes from Margherita- a town near Tinsukia in Assam's upper end. I had incidentally visited it in 1983 during my MBA internship.

Vietnam had a street called Hang Bong. No idea why they want to hang the Bong.

Karepalli, Chimalpahad and Tadkalpudi were names of stations along the Bhandrachalam Road to Dornakal railway line-our lifeline growing up.

Yellandu was one of the places our coal mining company had started mines in. We all enjoyed descending into inclines once in a while.

Interesting Names

 Since I have seen about half a million students by now, there were quite a few interesting names that came my way. Some happened in the U.S., but many in India.

Grafila Jain was a student at IMT Nagpur. So was Meenu Mynam. And Vidushi Gandhi. Among the more common ones (Ankit, Ankita), these stood out. Tosha Dubey too, who I met a few times later on. 

Yamini Shah was another unusual name. And Ratnashree. Of course, Laura, the Austrian girl too. Again at IMT.

Writabrita Ray takes the cake, among IIM Indore students, for uniqueness. Then there was Om Sai Keerthi Soppa, another long and unique one. Harapriya was also one of a kind, though it might be more common in Odisha. Sanket was also a new one, rare.

Nishka Kumar (now Rathi) at KIAMS, along with Jogeswari, were some of the unique ones. Both remain friends, many years after they graduated.

Among those I met elsewhere, Dhanali Sandesara from NIFT stands out.

Among foreign names, Godwin Udo from Nigeria, Yapin Qiao from China, Natalija from Lithuania, Masoud Abessi from Iran were some that were different. Alberto from Portugal also. And Samudrika from Sri Lanka.

Creative Names of Characters

 Probably the best set of names is in the Asterix comics.

Obelix

Cacofonix

Unhygienix

Vitalstatistix

Getafix

Names of various Roman Centurions- Crismus Bonus, Nefarius Purpus, and Dubius Status. Also Squareonthehypotenuse.

Impedimenta

Dogmatix

Geriatrix

Bacteria

If

 The word 'if' is magical. It lends itself to many unknown continuations, many possible endings. 

It's the beginning of imagination, in a way. And we all imagine the world, beginning with if..

If only, my last name was Ambani, or Biyani. I had a student, whose last name was Bihani, by the way..a narrow miss. Right now, Mallya is not a cool name to have, though it was, once.. in spite of the performance of his IPL team.

While growing up, we thought all Anglo-Indian names were cool. No idea why..now, a Nadkarni or Kulkarni looks cool to me. If only we had more sense then,..

If man had been vegetarian, would the Corona crisis have struck? Maybe not, but the plague could still have..rats spread it, I think..and rats and cockroaches are almost indestructible. So there's no escaping pandemics.. and wars are always a good substitute.

In my 60 years on the planet, there were many times I thought of the word if and sentences that started with that word, but now, I am beginning to believe that I really did not need the Ifs. I am quite happy with the way life turned out so far, and the lovely times I have had- even in the current lockdown, because of socialising virtually.

Names That I Like

Not sure why, I like the sound of these names. Not to be confused with people...I may like them too, of course. Also, does not mean I don't like all other names-maybe I didn't think of them. I think I have written elsewhere about all the people I like, this is only about some names (in other words, don't unfriend me coz your name is missing here  😂)

First, names of the female gender- Arundhati, Meghna, Shobhna, Shahida, Shalini, Tosha, Sirisha, Sanjana, Srishti, Vidisha, Tanaya, Shrunga, Roshni, Kalaivani, Damini, Priya, Tabassum, Irawati, Shruti, Bhawana, Shilpashree, Rajashree, Asmita, Yamini, Chhaya, Lauren, Gauri, Shreyasi, Isha, Nisha, Miskil, Jyotsna, Nidhi, Manjari, Nikita, Neha, Samudrika, Urmi, Urvashi, Shayari, Gunjan, Amulyaa, Divya, Anam, Sneha, Jui, Juhi, Grafila, Vhosky, Shefali, Kavya, Henna, Saumya,..


The Male Gender: Narendra, Vishesh, Raghav, Mohan, Alok, Tanmay, Prabhakar, Vinay, Dave, Zargar, Milind, Mark, Srinivas, Kalpak, Mihir, Kiran, Yuvaraj, Pavan, Arvind, Amlan, Parikshit, Kaavish, Vivek, ...

Names and Brands

Parents, beware! Names are brands, and positioning a brand is easier when the name is in sync with what the brand is doing. So, think about what your kid's name will be. India has some great names coming out of our history, mythology, and collective cultures.

Ajatshatru is literally, a person who has no enemies. Loved by all, hated by none. Mamata, notwithstanding a prominent politician who signifies anything but, means love of a kind.

I like the sound of some names (may or may not have anything to do with the people behind it- I am not telling)- Alok, Meghna, Shweta, Neha, Shruti, Bala, Frane, Steve, Saumya, Gopal, Prabhakar, Vikas (who doesn't like development? :) ), anything with a Kaur following it (ha, ha), Srinivas, Pooja, Prarthana (you may have guessed why), Anupama, Roshni, Priya, Anuradha, Manju, Raghavendra, Samrendra, Shahida, Divya, Abhinav, Tanaya, Nikita, ...Ok, I can go on. Leslie, Robin, Shirley, Lauren, Ron, are some that are easy on the tongue, and these were/are some friends too.

The point is just that it is easier on the kids if parents give some thought to what the kids and the public at large may think about the name, or the ease with which they can say it.

Name-changes

If I could change a few names around, what would they be? (I must admit I was inspired by the memes floating around starting with Aaj se tumhara naam hai...whatever).

Lalchand Rajput to Red Moon Rags.

Suneil Shetty to Sunny the Slayer.

Shilpa Shetty to Sculpted Slayer.

SRK to KKKiran Kumar.

Saif Ali Khan to Unsafe Ali Khan (at the box office).

Arnab Goswami to Pompous of Assissi.

Dev Anand to Loose-neck Dave.

Nirav Modi to Steal Diamond.

Donald Trump to Tughlak-e-jahan.

Kim you-know-who to Haircut I-con.

Hrithik Roshan to Jangling Bangles.

Thinking of Titles

Everything needs a title, and it's tough to think of one..for a film, a TV show, or for a position. In Tamil nadu, and Andhra/Telangana, every star has a title, I am told..the titles could be Superstar, Star of Stars, Never-before-seen-star, or any other bizarre set of words. The announcement when a monarch entered his court, whether it was Akbar in Mughal-e-Azam or Shivaji in his court, included their titles.

Naming something-your child, or the brand your company has conceived-has the same problem-namely, the name. And once you name someone or something, it's branded for a long, long time. Naming films would be an equally difficult job, I am guessing.

Trying to recall names of some popular shows we watched on American TV in the late eighties, the following come to mind- The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Hawaii Five-O, Miami Vice, Remington Steele, Murder, She Wrote, ..or those later, such as Friends, Castle, The Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, etc. one can see a pattern of using the names of places, characters (or real ones, as in Cosby's case), and sometimes, the subject- such as Family Ties starring Michael J. Fox, or Friends.

I personally prefer short titles- Rajni, for instance, or Mahabharat, but Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi was also a favourite TV show when it ran.

Names and Places

Vidisha is the first that comes to mind-she was a student at IMT Ghaziabad. The place is in M.P. Rewa is another, she was my student at Indore. Om Shivpuri was an actor, and Shivpuri is in M.P. too.

Javagal Srinath comes from Javagal, Salil Ankola from Ankola, and A.K. Hangal from Hangal. Deepika and her illustrious dad from Padukone (Guru Dutt too, though he did not use the last name). These are places in Karnataka. Bezawada Gopala Reddy and Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu were prominent people from Andhra, and bore the place names of Bezawada (Viijayawada's earlier avatar), and Tangutur.

Of course, most kars are from the place that precedes the kar. Belagaumkar, Hublikar, Nargundkar, Dharwadkar are some examples. Some people don't use the kar, so you find a Nargund as a surname too.

A Savant may be from Savantwadi. (We had one at Kirloskar Institute, Ameet). I think C.K. Prahalad, the management guru derives the C from Coimbatore.

Filmy Character Names

Some memorable filmy characters, mainly due to their names-

Dr. Fu Manchu- Peter Sellers in The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, who drinks a youth elixir made out of diamonds, stolen by a band of henchmen whom he calls "dacoits."

Rice Plate Reddy, a villain in the funny film, Quick Gun Murugan, which also had a seductress named Mango Dolly.

Dhurandhar Bhatawadekar -the incomparable Utpal Dutt, in Rang Birangi

Mogambo - Amrish Puri in Mr. India, who made "Mogambo khush hua" a household dialogue.

Soorma Bhopali- Jagdeep in Sholay, speaking in his inimitable style.

Virus in 3 Idiots, played so well by Boman Irani.

Circuit in Munnabhai MBBS. Arshad Warsi's best role, maybe.

..and finally, Lola Kutty, the delectable Mallu lady of the T.V. show by the same name. "Aalex"  was her frequent companion.

Minimalism

This means making do with the minimum that will serve the purpose. Art, food, drink, clothes, transportation, shoes, bags...

If we all became minimalists, it would be a disaster for the world economy.

Doctors would go out of business, as would slimming centres, diet advisors, ...

Retail stores would see their business resemble that of the 1929 depression.

GDP of all countries would resemble that of Sub-Saharan Africa (not sure where that is, but I thought it sounded appropriate).

Names would become shorter, because you don't need so many letters in it. Russian names of people and cities would eliminate all those unnecessary consonants...Awich and Bpova might become common.

Movie names would only have their short forms, like DDLJ and RHTDM, instead of the full forms.

Worst of all, marketing as a discipline may cease to exist...or re-invent itself as Mktg.

Starry Names

When we named our daughter no. 2 Pooja, there were two actresses around by that name- Bedi and Bhatt were their surnames. I am trying to recall students or colleagues who had starry names -

Jitendra (Sharma) was a colleague at IMT.

Anushka was a student. So were three Aishwaryas- Omprakash, Iyer and Saraswat, more recently.

Sreedevi was a colleague at Bangalore.

There have been a couple of Rajesh-s though not with a Khanna surname. Amitabh is a colleague right here.

Supriya, Shruti (Suman, Shah, Sharma) and Smita are also names of stars- the stars were Pathak, Haasan and Patil, a favourite actress.

Divya (Singh/Sisodiya) reminds me of Divya Bharti, the late actress.

Oormila (spelt differently) and Urmila Matondkar, the star.

Mohnish (Waikar) and Behl, the actor.

Shreyas is an actor's name too- Talpade.

Manisha (Rawat) and Janwadkar are reminders of the Koirala.

Sanjana Rao is a reminder of Sanjana Kapoor.

Pankaj reminds me of Pankaj Kapur, a brilliant actor.

Sanjeev Prashar ( a Prof.) and Undri, a student, remind me of Sanjeev Kumar, a favourite actor.

Vidya (TC) was a student, and Balan is the favourite heroine.

Shilpa (Arora) were names of more than one students, and Shetty is the star equivalent.

Madhuri Helchel, a former colleague and also a niece (Pai)- Madhuri Dixit is the star equivalent.

Change of Names

Places with changed names is the focus here.

Waltair is the old name for the city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Calicut is the old name for Kozhikode.

Trivandrum is the old name for Thiruvananthapuram.

Chennai is the new Madras, Puducherry is the new Pondicherry and Mumbai is the new name for Bombay.

Bangalore has turned into Bengaluru (and I believe, Gulbarga into Kalburgi), Calcutta into Kolkata.

Pune is what we call the old Poona now.

Roads have also been renamed to get a nationalistic flavour instead of the British-Raj one, like the name given to Warden Road. Bhulabhai Desai Rd is the new name. The American Cnsulate where I got my student visa used to be located on this road in Mumbai (Bombay). 

Names People Call Me

I am a man with multiple identities. I am used to being called names. From the home name (not homonym) of Raja (meaning king in India), to Raj in the U.S., hardly anyone calls me by the given name of Rajendra. In North India it changed to Rajender or Rajinder.

Being a Professor carries its own burdens, and you end up being called "Sir" (sometimes because students don't remember your name, but not always!). Variations of this are Dr. Nargundkar if they can get the last name right. In the U.S., they pronounced 'kar' as 'Car' due to cultural limitations, or habit.

It was Gunds in the MBA class at Bangalore. Sometimes Marcus Gundolius (Roman) or Gundarkar (Ghati) too. One of my friends in Bangalore later was more inventive, and just called me Nar.

I hope I have conclusively proved to you that I have multiple identities. If I haven't, go ahead and call me names.

Descriptive Names

Some names that are descriptive, or serve a larger purpose-

Yelliah- he yells.

Delilah- works in a Deli.

Malliah- works at the mall.

Telliah- works at a bank.

Gorbachev- Does the Gorba (Gujjus beware- there's also a che in his name).

Bharat- gives Mr. Manoj Kumar a complex.

Mark- he is always one up on you.

David Lean- programmed not to put on weight.

Javagal Srinath- his bowling got your jaw if you weren't careful.

Sivagami- India's answer to Origami.

Rasputin-sounds like a competitor to Frooti.

Names Derived From Places

We have a lot of names or surnames derived from places. An example- my surname is derived from a small town called Nargund in Karnataka. Javagal is a town in Karnataka, and so is Padukone. This (adding a 'kar' after the name of a place to create a surname) is a common practice in Maharashtra- so you have Solapurkars, Chalisgaonkars, and Punekars.

Atal Behari Vajpayee may or may not have been from Bihar, but maybe S.H. Bihari, the lyricist was. Lyricists have this trend among them of naming themselves after their place- Sahir Ludhianvi, Rahat Indori, and Hasrat Jaipuri are examples.

In Andhra, where I grew up, the village name is used as an initial, if not the family name-sometimes both are initials.

You could call this the game of the name.

Names That Ring a Bell

Not literally, of course. But names that you remember, for some reason. Memorable? May be.

Since Badminton is the flavour of the (Olympic) season, I'll start with Prakash Padkone. I watched him in a great game against Liem Swie King (Indonesian) that he lost. But I remember both names.

Lalchand Rajput is a name that I'll never forget. I had predicted once that with a name like that, he'd never last in the Indian cricket team for long. He didn't. Predictions score- One.

Nadia Comaneci, who got a perfect 10 in some Olympics. She was a great gymnast.

Katarina Witt, a German ice-skater. Watched her long ago in Winter Olympics.

Johny Walker, comedian. For obvious reasons, though I have outgrown that drink.

Michael Jackson. Easy to remember, great to watch. Prabhu Deva comes close, at times.

Dhurandhar Bhatawadekar. Utpal Dutt's name in a film.

Manasa- the name has a nice ring to it. I had a student and a faculty colleague by that name, but it's not too common.

Rajan Bala. A great raconteur and sports/cricket journalist I met once in Bangalore.

Meenu Mynam. A former student, whose name sounds musical.

A few more ex-students, whose names I remember for reasons that I may not (always remember)- Ronak, Saksham, Meghna, Shivangi, Jeevesha, Siddhanta, Rituparna, Gowri, Sreeram, Vignesh, Praveen, Rupam, Khushboo, Harleena, Harshad, Abhinav, Jyotirmoy, Kanika, Neha (two), Indranil, Hardik, Alekhya, Vidisha, Aashneet, Jasleen, Barleen, Harshdeep, Deepa, Anusha (there were two, at different B-schools), Shveta, Shweta (three different ones), Nikhil, Shrishail, Nishka, Anupama (two of them), Dheeraj, Vidya, Smita, Swapna, Siddhartha, Aditi (two again), Garima (two at different schools), Jatin, Aman, Aninda, Savitha, Manjari, Shreyashi, Shreya, Roopashree, Padmapriya, Jogeswari, Pallavi, Shafique, Roshni, Murtaza, Laura, PVR (Prabhuvardhan Reddy), Nikita, Shruti, Aditya, Devashish, Bhawana (two, with different spellings), Tamros, Twinkle, Vivek, Ratnashree, Laura (now Shah)...the list is too long to list.

Update- I had a record five Ankitas in a class I just taught. Some about-to-graduate students from Indore- Kalaivani, Madhan, Jasmine, Swathika, Sadhana, Abhilasha, Kritika, Avik, Philip, Ayushi, Satchi, Chandran, Akshaya, ...

Naming Dons

The recent arrest of one of them gave me ideas. As you know, that (me having ideas) can be dangerous, and you are right. I ended up coining names for future Dons.

Tees Maar Khan

Bhagta Kachhua

Chaakuwala Chintoo

Peekay Pinto

Gadbad Ghotala

Daaga

Jay Kay

Kaalia

Patli Chhuri

Behosh Bablu

Khamosh Shatru

Yeda Lambu

Khara Shambhu

and the eternal Bollywood favourite, Shaakaal (would a mother think of such a name? I wonder)

My Brand Names

The business of naming brands/people/things is tricky. You can get it right, and sometimes, horribly wrong. If I could name the following, my favourite names would be-

1. For a West Bengal Political Party- Oh, Calcutta.

2. For Salman Khan's signature shampoo which will compete with Pant-ene - Shirtoff.

3. For the FM Radio Jockeys who like to yak non-stop- Yukyuk.

4. For stock market "experts" who let you sink, as they are unable to predict a downturn- Titanic.

5. For Nitish/Laloo- Do Be'Chare'

6. For Arnab- Go, Swami.

7. El Nino- Kisiki to suno.

8. Google's next product- AtiSunder!

9. Guys who agree to get into Big Boss-  GetaLife

10. People who read blogs- Golden Hearts!