What is in a name? asked the bard of Avon.
Quite a lot would have been my response as in my case, what should have been a mile-long Allampallam Ananthasubrahmanian Ramakrishnan became a crisp Rajan Mani. While the person himself would have not changed obviously, I am quite sure perceptions of others about him would have changed depending on which of these monikers was used.
Even the short name brought interesting situations in its wake. People from Punjab have often called me Maini and people from Maharashtra Mane - and it added to the fun that I can conduct rudimentary conversation in both these languages - Punjabi and Marathi. Some of our friends from God's own country were confused whether I was a Christian, in which case my surname would have been pronounced Maani, with a long 'a' or if I was a Hindu called Mani.
Funnily enough, the name caused most difficulty in Tamil Nadu. Rajan is a common name as is Mani and even Rajamani is seen occasionally. Many Tamilians just could not handle the concept of Rajan Mani together. First question was what my father's name was. When I answered Mani, they would wonder why it came second - as in the traditional Tamil way of naming. the father's name comes first and the first letter of this name is prefixed as an initial. The next question in an attempt to trip me up would be to ask what my initials were. When I said none, invariably, people would shake their heads slowly in sympathy! They would then ask how I would like to be addressed. That would usually floor them because my reply would be either Rajan or Mr Mani depending on whether they wanted to be informal or formal. Then people took the easy way out by assigning initials to me. I must have forced a change in the front page of at least ten project reports submitted to the University mentioning my name as the mentor by the student, because arbitrary initials were prefixed to my name. I even had to have the registration certificate (RC) changed of a new car I bought because the car dealer's assistant felt my name to be incomplete without an arbitrary initial!
In the Tamil Brahmin community I was born into, the traditional form of naming follows this sequence
a) the village to which one belongs - that's where the Allampallam should have come in my name. My father's logic was that he himself had never seen the village and thus it need not figure.
b) The next part of my name should have been his name - Ananthasubrahmanian. He said he had struggled enough with this big name and thus, when he had joined employment, changed his own name from R Ananthasubrahmanian to R A S Mani. So Mani would do.
c) Being the first born of my parents, I should have been officially named after my paternal grandfather and thus should have been called Ramakrishnan. My parents probably felt that by the time I was born, there were at least four more Ramakrishnans among my cousins and hence preferred the shorter name,Rajan.
Traditionally names in India have one of three attributes as added identity - a house name. place of origin or a profession/ caste name. In Kerala, there is this concept of a veetumperu or a house name as in the Telugu speaking states - intiperu. If there were three Johns or Madhavans in a village, to distinguish them, a feature such as a house name would be very useful. To elaborate, I had a classmate called John whose house name was Moonnumaakkal (three mango trees) and thus his full name would mean in English John of the house with three mango trees. In the Western part of India, the father's name comes second and often is followed by a village name. The full name of the cricket legend Sunil Manohar Gavaskar for instance means his father's name is Manohar and the family belongs to a village called Gavas. Many surnames affixed to names all over India indicate profession e.g. Upadhyaya, a teacher or Bajaj a cloth merchant. This topic is actually so fascinating especially in a country as diverse as India and could go on and on.
To come back then to the Bard's question with which I started, my response would be that there is quite a lot in a name - Rajan Mani is definitely quite different from what Allampallam Ananthasubrahmanian Ramakrishnan would have evoked in the mind of the listener.
Quite a lot would have been my response as in my case, what should have been a mile-long Allampallam Ananthasubrahmanian Ramakrishnan became a crisp Rajan Mani. While the person himself would have not changed obviously, I am quite sure perceptions of others about him would have changed depending on which of these monikers was used.
Even the short name brought interesting situations in its wake. People from Punjab have often called me Maini and people from Maharashtra Mane - and it added to the fun that I can conduct rudimentary conversation in both these languages - Punjabi and Marathi. Some of our friends from God's own country were confused whether I was a Christian, in which case my surname would have been pronounced Maani, with a long 'a' or if I was a Hindu called Mani.
Funnily enough, the name caused most difficulty in Tamil Nadu. Rajan is a common name as is Mani and even Rajamani is seen occasionally. Many Tamilians just could not handle the concept of Rajan Mani together. First question was what my father's name was. When I answered Mani, they would wonder why it came second - as in the traditional Tamil way of naming. the father's name comes first and the first letter of this name is prefixed as an initial. The next question in an attempt to trip me up would be to ask what my initials were. When I said none, invariably, people would shake their heads slowly in sympathy! They would then ask how I would like to be addressed. That would usually floor them because my reply would be either Rajan or Mr Mani depending on whether they wanted to be informal or formal. Then people took the easy way out by assigning initials to me. I must have forced a change in the front page of at least ten project reports submitted to the University mentioning my name as the mentor by the student, because arbitrary initials were prefixed to my name. I even had to have the registration certificate (RC) changed of a new car I bought because the car dealer's assistant felt my name to be incomplete without an arbitrary initial!
In the Tamil Brahmin community I was born into, the traditional form of naming follows this sequence
a) the village to which one belongs - that's where the Allampallam should have come in my name. My father's logic was that he himself had never seen the village and thus it need not figure.
b) The next part of my name should have been his name - Ananthasubrahmanian. He said he had struggled enough with this big name and thus, when he had joined employment, changed his own name from R Ananthasubrahmanian to R A S Mani. So Mani would do.
c) Being the first born of my parents, I should have been officially named after my paternal grandfather and thus should have been called Ramakrishnan. My parents probably felt that by the time I was born, there were at least four more Ramakrishnans among my cousins and hence preferred the shorter name,Rajan.
Traditionally names in India have one of three attributes as added identity - a house name. place of origin or a profession/ caste name. In Kerala, there is this concept of a veetumperu or a house name as in the Telugu speaking states - intiperu. If there were three Johns or Madhavans in a village, to distinguish them, a feature such as a house name would be very useful. To elaborate, I had a classmate called John whose house name was Moonnumaakkal (three mango trees) and thus his full name would mean in English John of the house with three mango trees. In the Western part of India, the father's name comes second and often is followed by a village name. The full name of the cricket legend Sunil Manohar Gavaskar for instance means his father's name is Manohar and the family belongs to a village called Gavas. Many surnames affixed to names all over India indicate profession e.g. Upadhyaya, a teacher or Bajaj a cloth merchant. This topic is actually so fascinating especially in a country as diverse as India and could go on and on.
To come back then to the Bard's question with which I started, my response would be that there is quite a lot in a name - Rajan Mani is definitely quite different from what Allampallam Ananthasubrahmanian Ramakrishnan would have evoked in the mind of the listener.
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