Desis revere the classical language Sanskrit. But unlike whites, among whom liberal education is popular, desis never get a serious chance to study classical languages. Added to that, the priestly high class and all the scriptures have created a perfect aura around Sanskrit over the past several centuries.
An occasional forwarded email or a news paper article exhort praise on the sound, the beauty and the perfect grammatical structure of the language, pushing desis into deeper levels of shame.
The inability of desis to formally learn the language, the high reverence held by the culture and the deep connection it has centuries old traditions and scriptures, make desis crave for authentic-Sanskrit sounding names for their kids.
This simple and genuine craving has far reaching implications like (a) identity crisis among kids who grow up in a alien culture, (b) pushing non-desis into embarrassment for not being to able to say the name right, (c) delayed customer service because of unpronounceable and undecipherable names (bingo! offshoring helps.) (d) and of course plots like The Namesake.
Potential examples of victimizable names include: Pradhyumna, Manognya, Yeshashwini, Viviktha, Shragvi etc.
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Spot on. I agree..
Non-desis will screw up even the simplest of desi names. Hell, non-desis will screw up non-desi names. So why bother adapting ourselves to suit others incompetence? I like my name thank you very much. It makes me unique. Unfortunately these days even my name, as long and lovely as it is, has been usurped by many a brown desi out there, but for the record – i’m the REAL slim shady.
@longproudandyummy desis screw up desi names. Just google for a certain popular South Asian music composer called “A.R. Raghuman”
I concur. My name is Yeshvir and few people in India got it right. I used to get anything from Yashbir, Jasbir, Yaspeer, Yasir to Eashwar. Here, people get my name right even if its after one or two tries. They pronounce it right.
@keysov… “pushing non-desis into embarrassment for not being to able to say the name right” – my comment was aimed at this statement. You’re right that desis also screw up desi names, but I didn’t imply that they didn’t. That said, its a desis fault for not saying their own names properly and trying to make it easier to pronounce for other people.
Poor !obile.
So true! My name is a 3-part process:
(1) My name is .
(2)
(3) , rhymes with but starts with .
Mahaprashadhamvishnupriyank Dev
This comment about ARR brought out something that we used to laugh about in grad school; I remember every one of my Hindu friends saying Rahman was Dilip(yea!! He was born a Hindu:))) b4 his latest avatar.And every one of my muslim friends used to say, “Oh. He woke up at last.”
Indians generally have the nature of preening over their castes/religions/states/language…
LOL, In Bangladesh, it’s authentic Arabic-Farsi sounding names. The more obscure, the better. Cute-sounding Bengali names likes “Rimjhim” (idealized sound of rain), “Brishti” (rain), “Baursha” (rainy season), or “Bonna” (flood!) are also extremely popular semi-formalized nicknames irrespective of the meaning.
Unless you’re “new money” trying to move up the “civil society” ladder as quickly as possible, or so you think, Anglicized names are a thing of the past.
But it’s always OK when the typical White guy chooses to find your name to be as difficult as Chaos Theory, and calls you Bob.
Actually Indians don’t use Sanskrit based name but rather ugly names like Jagdish anything “ish” and gibberish like Babloo and Neha and nasly harsh sounding words; Indians can’t spot a Sanskrit name if it hit them on the head nor let alone define it!! Plus, if you’re not Christian there’s no reason to give your child biblical names or Anglo-Saxon based name(hence, conforming to “fair and lovely” standards). Or I love the gas station worker who’ll just call himself “Sam”…it’s stupid!
Please send the unique baby names on the mail
strange baby name, very ancient.. but I think there were very beautiful baby meanings. good article!
Actually, you’d be surprised by the number of Neils I’ve met.
Not Yet There..!!! Hey that would be a great name for your kid..!!!Also it has all the 3 letters you want..!!!
You superstitious idiots disgust me…!!!(should be with N,Y,T it seems)
can anbody tell me the meaning of the name shragvi
Shragvi means TULSI
You say Shragvi means Tulsi. But how? What is the formation of this word? What is the source of this meaning? Can you name any dictionary?
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