A rose by any other name would smell as sweet…and yet…

I have been reading Ai Ling’s blog for some time now and gradually I got curious about her name. So I asked her whether it was name + surname (last name / family name) and which was which or whether it was a pseudonym she had taken for the blogging world.

So in response she wrote a nice detailed post that not only gave me the answer to my question but also gave me some information about pronunciations of Chinese names. What it also did was, it inspired me to write about name conventions in India.

So, here's a little bit (as much as I'm aware) about the Indian names convention.

Whenever surnames are used, they have come about from either the name of a place or the occupation or a title bestowed on a person in the family and then carried on as a family name. Some surnames come from castes or sub-castes. There are some surnames whose origins I am not entirely certain about.

In India, in the Central and Western region, the convention is usually name + surname. On official documents (government), one is required to write one’s father’s or husband’s name also and there, the name is written in the format: surname + name + father’s / husband’s name, just like the Chinese do, as mentioned in Ai Ling's post.

In South India, in the previous generations, the convention was name + father’s name (or husband’s name for married ladies) + name of the place one belonged to. Since the last generation however, they have dropped the name of the place of origin and use only name + father’s name / husband’s name. Those South Indians who were born and brought up in Central or Western India had to take on a surname for official (government) documentation purposes. So they usually took on the name of their sub-caste as a surname.

In the state Punjab and Haryana, the name of a male child is followed by ‘singh’ (sounds like ‘sing’) and the name of a female child is followed by ‘kaur’ (sounds like ‘core’), then the father’s name followed by ‘singh’ and then the surname. So, Mr. A whose father is Mr. B and surname is C, writes his name as AS BS C :)

In North India I have observed that many people have joint first-names e.g. S Kumari where Kumari means girl or T Lal where Lal means beloved son :) (By the way, Lal also means the colour red…but let me not digress). So they usually write their names as S Kumari or T Lal only. When they come to Central or Western India and have to fill up any official documents, then they have to write their entire name which goes something like S Kumari + D Lal + Surname. Of course I have also seen that many North Indians write their names like Western Indians do… name + surname.

I have only touched upon the broader name conventions. I am sure there are a lot of finer nuances if we delve deeper.

As I write this post, I realise that there is so much diversity within India even for something as a name…and yet, the essence is nearly the same…name preceded or followed by the association that one finds important to be mentioned along with the name, for ease and uniqueness of identification.

Our name represents our identity to the world. We want to be identified and associated with what we feel is ours or important to us. We feel irritated when somebody mispronounces it or misspells it. Some girls retain their birth name after marriage since they feel that by changing it, they lose the identity they lived with for so many years and the connection they have with their birth family.

Some, like me, take pseudonyms to feel safe in the blogging world when they are baby-bloggers. In fact I am a rare specimen. I not only took my husband’s surname when we were married but also requested him to (read: made him) change my first name as well. (Yes, in my culture, that is often done. In fact that was the norm a few generations ago. Nowadays, in most families, it is done only with the consent of the bride). My husband was habituated to (and still uses) my maiden first name to call me but since it is a very common name, I wanted to get it changed to an uncommon name and saw my marriage as a perfect opportunity to get it done :) TH, sweet thing, complied with my wish. Now, I use my maiden name (first name + surname) in all my theatre activities and I use my married name (changed first name + changed surname) in office and for all official documentation.

How important the name is to us, isn’t it ? :)