The Hindu Business Line : What's in a name?

Without Westernising our names or losing our own culture how can we find the middle path? Chuck ego at the door, and look for ease of understanding.

Greetings from the US from where I am writing this week's article. At Starbucks, the last two times I ordered coffee, they asked me for my name. I said "Ranjini," but the man or woman had to ask me two or three times before being able to take down my name and I could feel those behind me in the queue grow restless. They did, however, need to get my name to call it out when the order of coffee was ready.

By the third time, I found a way out. I gave my name as `Jini'; just two syllables and one that didn't sound so different from a Western version, `Ginny,' that is used here. The understanding has been instantaneous and the experience has been spot on since then.

This reminded me of a recent news article I had read at home in India. Pradyumna Thiruvenkatanathan had won a Cambridge MIT scholarship. How, I wondered, would Pradyumna be getting on with his name. Would he be at all addressed by his seven-syllabled last name? If I knew him, I would love to have asked.

Students from Chennai are attending Nobel laureate seminars. Indian professionals from New Delhi are attending conferences the world over. Direct-to-home television companies are telemarketing from Mumbai to the US all the time. Indians and the world are fully connected. So what can we do to get over the naming stumbling block?

In the Hindu tradition, when naming a baby, one of the Sanskrit mantras says: "Your name is Brahman," and for transaction purposes another one was given. They then chose some God's name for calling the child. So each time the name was uttered, spiritual merit was also collected and the vibrations were good. On the deathbed, when the mother called her son, she also called the Lords name; all this thought had gone into the Hindu naming tradition.

Fast forward to 2007 when India is becoming a super power because of our knowledge of the English language. Besides, we are good with digits, and Indians are much sought after for both.

Nowadays, for transacting with the world our multi-syllabled names are posing challenges.

Without westernising our names or losing our own culture how can we find the middle path? Chuck ego at the door, and look for ease of understanding. Go with some comfort level to please yourself, but also put the other person first.

It isn't as if we lose our cultural identity as some cultures may feel they do adapting completely Western names.

The Starbucks person, for instance, or even someone I work with on a project, is not someone I live or work with forever and shortening my name for transactions only makes the job easier.

Not more than two syllables

We have to find a comfortable, shortened version of our name; one we can live with. If it is one syllable it will be easy to register — Raj is easier than Gopal for Rajgopal — but to try and restrict it to no more than two syllables is most effective.

Consonants apart

Most other languages find it hard to handle sounds that have two consonants without a vowel in between. For instance, `mn' in `Yumna' is hard for most others. The Indian tongue can twist and turn easier than others shall we say? In such cases, it is best to find a short name which simplifies this process. Don't ask me how, but a friend I met here in Silicon Valley, is called Rocky instead of Satish!

Initials are a breeze

One easy way out is to say "I am Jayakrishna Bhatt, please call me JK for short." In India, we get used to initials easily and people from overseas find it easy to remember and say them too. So this is a good via media to go with.

Pronunciation and meanings help

It is perfectly okay to take the time to help others get the pronunciation right using some mnemonic device. "My name is Ram, it is pronounced like CD - Rom not the animal ram." Chances are the other person will get it right away. Find out what your name means, help others remember by telling them the meaning. It is appreciated if you say "Ravi means sun, Chandra means moon."

One of my expatriate clients surprised me with his rather rare, deeply intuitive understanding of the Indian naming game. He said: "I have understood now that most of your names are a string of different God's names, for example Siva-rama-krishna or Uma-mahesh or Sita-ram."

Our names don't fit on a form when we travel and go way off the passport line too. Initials sometimes confuse by standing after our names. Let's clearly work out and have a first name-last name system in our own minds as computers accept this data as the first capture before all else. Most computer code is written in India or by Indians anyway, so why lose out with our names? We have a lot more going for us.

(The writer is Founder and CEO of Global Adjustments, the Chennai-headquartered relocation and cross-cultural training company.)