The naming crisis

The snap-

The post-

I still remember her name. It has been almost 8 or may be 9 years since I met her (I think it was in my 8 th standard summer holidays). It was during one of those summer chess camps which have a string of good and bad memories attached to it. She is a fragment of such a sweet memory a long time ago that I am not able to remember her exact face except for that she was extremely cute and her name was Chudar(meaning a splinter of a flame).


I loved her name. It was short, sweet, interesting and it was in my favorite language – Tamil*.


For people who do not know how kids are named over here in Tamil Nadu – An astrologer is consulted who after examining the birth time of the baby, does some calculations (oh no, not arithmetic – it’s more like based on the nine planets*, they would say – ooh yeah whatever you say dude, whatever you say) and then he selects the starting and ending of the name. Then the parents, having a couple of impossible letters in hand would name the kid which is usually predictable.


If it’s a girl the names Ishwarya, Deepa,Ranjini,Priya are common. If it’s a boy the names Kumar,Arun,Santosh,Muthu are common. And the word Sri is used as an addition for both girl’s names as well as that of the names of the boys (its like – oh you think the name needs a bit more spunk, ok -add Sri before or after the present name ).


It has always been simply a wonder to me – How can parents pay these astrologer guys to pick out names for their kids that are as common as anything. Isn't naming your kid, an absolute joy to yourself? I think every baby finds a unique relationship with their parents even before it’s born. And what amazes me is that the parents think that other people can name the baby better than them.


I think naming a baby defines what that baby means to you. You are inheriting to your kid a very small segment of your culture but of significant value. A name that your son or daughter can relate to and feel a sense of pride in being called and identified by that name. Get creative. You can simply do better than following the crowd in this major event of naming your child. After all your kid is a piece of your own flesh and blood. It’s a private relationship and for Gods sake honor it with the love and ingenuity that it needs.


The real inspiration to write this blog came a few days back when I visited a new born mother and her new born baby boy (apparently a parent is as new born as a kid to see her own flesh and blood smile at her). After spending a while with them, the mother said that she has to name the baby starting with M and she was thinking of Muthu Kumar as a possible nice name. I simply looked at the kid. “Welcome to the clan dude, Welcome to the clan. Hmhm May be we should start collecting royalty money for using our name kid, simply no other go.”