Posted on 11/14/2014 5:10:41 AM PST by The Friend
Dear Freerepublicans,
I came across your great Free Republic website about four years ago when I was googling the internet looking for information that can help us deciding on a formal name for our newly born daughter. Fourteenth November is celebrated as children’s day in India. 150 years ago, India’s first prime minister was born this day. Today, let me extend a long overdue ‘Thank You’ to this useful website and its inspiring members for the help that I received without you not even knowing about it.
In the West, every formal name has an associated predictable child hood name. For example, one can assume that childhood name for Benjamin (Franklin) can be Ben (I wonder why the clock in London is called Big Ben) and for Steven (Paul Jobs) Steve. And Geo could be a common short name for George (Washington and Walker Bush).
In India, everyone has a childhood name which is totally unconnected from his/her formal name. Typically these names are short but have no dictionary meanings as these are terms of endearments. So, there is no way of guessing what did the parents of Narendra Damodardas Modi call him when he was a child. It could have been Bittu, Babloo, Bantu or anything else. And all others named Narendra may have entirely different childhood names.
Mostly, the first names are chosen based on what alphabets are determined by the Hindu priest/astrologer at the time of birth. These are based on date, time, location of birth. (So, an astrologer during a chat may ask DTL? Instead of ASL? !) For example, somebody born on 14 November 2014 at 1 am at Washington should have a name starting with ‘De’ (as in Da vid) or ‘Dai’ (as in Dei ty). For fun, you may check for yourself too at the following link. http://www.drikpanchang.com/utilities/horoscope/hindu-baby-name-calculator.html
For our daughter, we consulted an astrologer and got the answer right on the day when she was born. We gave her a short childhood name based on that. The name connoted to goddess of prosperity and wealth. And we thought we will find her the formal name after discussions. These discussions and searches continued for over a year. As there were not too many options that we liked based on the astrology, we decided to be more open. In any case, we will mostly call her by her short name. We shortlisted ten Sanskrit names starting with alphabet A. Modern Indian parents look for stylish names that are uncommon. But the options are still limited to Indian languages like Sanskrit. Various other factors like availability of internet domain name etc. were kept in mind.
When googling for these ten names, I was surprised to see that many of these have been accepted into other ancient languages too – like Japanese, Hebrew etc. For example, we liked ‘Akira’ but we found that it also is a name in Japanese language. In Sanskrit it means graceful but in Japanese it is a boy’s name. And there are a large number of deities in the Japanese system named after Indian ones. One of the oldest names of God found in Vedas (2000 B.C.) is Indra. Today, there are more temples dedicated to Indra in Japan than in India. So, the thing about Akira is understandable.
Free Republic Akula Another name we liked a lot was Akula, another name for Hindu goddess for wealth. And I think, while googling for Akula, I came across your Free Republic website. I studied a lot of comments by Freepers on the topics related to Akula. And I was astonished to note that Akula is the name of a ferocious sub marine. I could not understand why would Russia name it after an Indian goddess of wealth. Perhaps it has a meaning in the Russian language too. We did not want our daughter to be respected out of fear. Besides the ‘Yellow Submarine’, can there be anything common in a sub marine and a child? So, thank you www.freerepublic.com for helping us not to choose Akula. We had almost finalised it.
A friend is a brigadier level officer who designs submarines. From him I learnt that ships don’t die; they survive due to continuity of names. So, that’s a plus in sharing a name with a ship! As a school boy, I had joined the Naval Wing. I took pride in the way we saluted wearing the singlets. We used to say how gently we salute in Naval compared to Air and Army wings; so that we don’t rock the boat. The foot tapping in Army is the mightiest. At least that’s what I thought till I witnessed the Wagah border ceremony. I think the border guards score above Army in this respect!
An uncle is retiring soon after a long career in civil atomic reactor fire specialism. He has a deep interest in languages. He had told me once that the National Archive on Janpath has history of names of every village and city in India. I thought of visiting it. Do names of cities survive? I wonder what was Paris called 3000 years ago. Delhi was called Indra-prastha, after the Hindu god of rains. I soon dropped this idea.
The problem with Google is that it helps us to ‘search’ while what we actually want to do is to ‘seek’. Few years from now, it is hard to believe, there will not be a Google, at least in its present form. Google knows it and they, along with several others, are working against time to morph ‘search’ to ‘seek’. Search 2.0 cannot be seek. For example, the sixth generation fighter aircraft cannot be speced at by improving over the fifth.
I went to our paediatrician. He was the youngest student in medical school and we trust him a lot. He told us that medically speaking there is no implication of a name on child’s health, wellbeing and future. I think for self-esteem, a name that is liked by other people pleases a child.
Will the Bard ("A rose by any other name would smell as sweet") agree with the doctor? I don’t.
Chastened, we dropped this second criteria of alphabet A. We prepared another short list of meaningful, uncommon, names from major ancient languages and starting with any alphabet and having any four more alphabets. More than a year after she was born, we involved our daughter in the choice. We wrote down these five names on a separate chits of paper, rolled them independently, and put in a small box and made a rattle out of it. We helped her play with it and open it. She herself picked up a chit and chose her name. In a way, we were relieved to note that the name she chose is from Sanskrit and refers to a goddess of strength. There is a huge difference in respect accrued due to strength rather than fear.
The name of the current Indian Prime Minister is Narendra (Damodardas Modi) which literally means ‘King Among Men’ (Nar + Indra = Man + King, Indra also means king). I do not know if he had a child hood name. But he is surely the most powerful person, at least in the last thirty year history, amongst a billion plus Indians.
In the past four years, I have learnt a lot via the Free Republic website. I have rediscovered the US, its political system, and various other things on this wonderful site. I was raised in an academic campus supported by MIT and the American Ambassadors would visit the place often. As a child, I liked leafing through American stuff like Span, National Geographic, Popular Mechanics, Reader’s Digest, Scientific American, etc. Perhaps they are no more in print. Even Newsweek has fallen. I continue to learn about India too! One of the ways I use this website is to read about India by typing India in the search box, more than once a week. When in business school, I learnt that the best way to read news is to read political news covered by a business newspaper. They summarize it in a page or two. General newspapers in India, running into dozens of pages, carry all sorts of silly stuff. Recently I did a calculation on Times of India, the newspaper in English language with the largest circulation in the world. More than 51% of pages are devoted to advertisement, notices etc that can in no way be called as ‘news’. Such a newspaper is no more a news-paper; it should be named something else - like ‘nousepaper’. Though ‘The Economist’ magazine still considers itself as a newspaper.
Happy Children’s Day to all!
Thank you, And Happy Freeping!
Dear CrazyIvan,
Thank you. I have glanced through the link. I think it is for linking images (and other stuff) that is already uploaded on some website.
Best regards.
Your comment -
“I have not done it for some time, but the HTML Sandbox http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3107232/posts is the place to learn this stuff. Hopefully someone more computer capable than I (not much of an achievement) will see this and offer better adlvice.”
Dear eyedigress,
Thank you for the link. Is there no provision for uploading pictures from a desktop?
Best regards.
“||
Just follow these instructions.
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_img.asp";
No. You must upload to a service and link to that.
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