Tuesday, June 3, 2003

Name game

Rachana, Megha, Keerthana. Manav, if its a boy. But then Manav Madhav doesn't sound too good.

Maneka Gandhi's book isn't helping any. We have reached the stage where we think Pinky is a better name than any of those mythological ones. Ghatotkacha is out. So is Avalokitheshwari.

Suggestions ?

52 comments:

  1. Emily? Amelie? ::horse grin::

    Well, first off, how would it be "Manav Madhav" and not "Manav Nair" ?

    I wouldn't mind being {Keerthana|Keerthi} {Madhav|Nair}.

    ReplyDelete
  2. how would it be "Manav Madhav" and not "Manav Nair"

    Oh, we decided to drop the caste thingy. Let my name carry on ! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. my favorite boy names are siddharth cause it's rich and ved 'cause it's simple.
    if girl; i'll get back to you on that...
    yay!! fun!

    ReplyDelete
  4. any constraints or first letters as must have or such, while playing the name game?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Why don't we know the sex of the kid yet?

    I mean Rodrigo and Claudia know they're getting a girl ... Is it illegal in India? Or didja choose not to have it told to you? Or do you secretly know the sex of the kid, except you figured you'd lead us LJ folks on ... ;/

    ReplyDelete
  6. yup, it is officially illegal here

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Megha" has a lovely nasal twang.

    ReplyDelete
  8. That sounds like the punchline for a cola ad.

    ReplyDelete
  9. boy, girl or twins...here you go.

    P.S. laud the caste tag dropping move *clap clap clap*. personally always wanted to change my name from vijay menon to vijay chandra das(my dad's name is rama chandra das).

    ReplyDelete
  10. Mehneer if it's a girl. Means first drops of the monsoon rains. Mind you one of my friends used to change her name every city she went to... she has about 6 names. So even if the baby doesn't like it's name it can always change.

    Hmmm.... or maybe my friend just has a really dodgy past....

    ReplyDelete
  11. I really liked Siddharth. However Sindha feels its become very common nowadays. So have been forced to give it up. :-(

    Ved is nice, maybe a bit too simple though...

    ReplyDelete
  12. No real constraints. However we'd like to avoid names beginning with A and T/U/V/W/X/Y/Z, so as to not have the kid appear at the beginning or bottom of an alphabetical list, heh heh.

    ReplyDelete
  13. It is, at least in Bangalore. The doc at Mallya hospital refused pointblank. He said he was liable to be prosecuted and the hospital could be shut down.

    No big deal, we can wait.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks for the link. Actually we've had enough of websites and books. We'd rather ask a few friends/relatives and arrive at a good name if possible.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Also avoid S. Way too many names out there that begin with S. Always cluttering up phone directories, making individual names difficult to find.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Prahlad, Dhruv(I like this one a lot, ever-ambitious, and star-material) . If you have any bengali friends, then ask them, they have some beautiful names, Sangamitra, Mitra, Mita and Debashree are but examples.I have a penchant for Sanskrit names, those that you find in tales of yore...Agnidutta, Mitrasen etc...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Meesha Madhav N ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Yeah, we thought of that already. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  19. hey mad
    the donts and a few dos

    1. dont get a name starting with A to C cos ur knees tremble when u go first for the quiz
    or ending with the last letter..cos u tend to sleep by the time ur time comes

    2 dont give these names with initials. it is a mess with the passports and visas and half the time the kid will end up with offer letters addressing him or her with your name. I means its ok if its a guy but how would monica feel if it say" dear madhav . we welcome u to wellington ladies college...."

    3. Most forms have names that have blocks that can take 10 to 12 words so thiruvengadathan or tripurasundari

    4. Dont have a short name cos one mite like to have a shortened version and mite like his or her gf/bf to have the pleasure of a shortened name
    so something like mona or sona is out... i mean no one will want to be called mo or so

    5. try to rhyme the name with the surname. anything that rhymes with yadav will rhyme with madhav

    6. make sure that the initials dont make a sills word
    i mean j-lo is fine but pp can be made fun of and you know these brats in school!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Those are pretty good names, thanks. Will add them to the list (apart from Agnidutta & Mitrasen...)

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'm just going to write down my favourites without worrying about your rules. So here goes

    Tara
    Kaya
    Arundhati
    Anurita (anurita madhac has a nice ring to it, methinks)
    Moksh
    Ayan
    Prateek
    Neel (i wasn't gonna write this, coz that was my son's name, but P's bro stole it anycase)
    Jeet
    Dheer

    ReplyDelete
  22. Gauri. Vishal.

    ReplyDelete
  23. i think its illegal in india. check this out
    unless doctor wants to scan for medical reason

    i mean with the female infanticide so high we dont want embrocides do we??

    ReplyDelete
  24. Neel is an interesting name. The others ain't bad either. Thanks for the list.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Good tips, thanks !

    ReplyDelete
  26. Hmmm. Gauri is nice.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Mehneer sounds quite beautiful. Perhaps a bit complicated, though. The kid might need to repeat it multiple times when asked her name. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  28. i love names : saw this post a little late : so here is my 2 cents

    ananya for the girl : whoops you dont want A ... but ananya has a nice repetitive click to it, and my mom feels A starting names are good till you get out of college(and she named me Vineeth!!!) cos then you always dont have to wait till the end to get your hallticket, markscard, etc. and you can always skim the top of any list

    anukrit for the boy.

    ReplyDelete
  29. My 2 cents worth suggestions:

    I'm mostly dropping the "kant" in my firstname ASAP, since I don't use it anywhere, and its just "excess baggage". I mean, my website doesn't have it, my friends know/call me "Ravi" and most people don't even know that my real name isn't that. My login has always been "ravi" on any multi-user system I've worked on, and so on, and so forth.

    Also, its very hard for westerners to pronounce a name that long, and I recall as a kid I kept getting badgered for having the name that I do, including the bastardization of my name going to Ravi-$vulgar connotation. I don't suppose you want to knowingly put your kid thro' that. I'd like to have changed my name back in Madras, but thats not a reality, in India. They wanted me to do so many bizarre things that I figured it was simpler to deal with it later.

    A name like "Siddharth" lends itself to "westernization" to say, "Sid" which isn't a bad thing, imho. If you ask me, its good to have some kind of western-world-compatible name, but not essential.

    Its a wholly different issue whether or not you want your kid to be "western-world-compatibly" named ... but if you ask me, name-changes are not at all as easy as you probably think it is.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Better than Arun Subramanian Anantharama... as birdonthewire's ICICI post explains ;)

    ReplyDelete
  31. Some very Marathi names but see if you like any ....

    Uttara
    Abha
    Mukta
    Gayatri
    Mithila

    and boys...

    Aditya
    Ankush
    Chinmaya
    Advait
    Arnav
    Sharang

    Most of these are my nephews/nieces :)

    ReplyDelete
  32. was that meant to be ukj? haha

    ReplyDelete
  33. haha ok thanks i did check uke
    maybe i shouldve checked the previous entries on the blog
    "EZEKIEL GANESH YALEK RACHMIEL MACHINERY BORNSTEIN "??

    then cross checked and found ukj on your friends list and not uke...so i put 1 and 1 together and arrived at 3

    sorry about that ukj....please dont sue me

    ReplyDelete
  34. so here goes a few more thoughts shouldve appended it with the previous list

    1. make sure the name is anglizizable...er i mean
    harish is harry or madhav is maddy
    u know how the westernised punks in schools nowadays are
    also helps if u r working in a global environment

    2. dont use tongue twisters...
    alzagappan or thiruvengadam is not pronouncable by 96.854% ppl around the world.

    ReplyDelete
  35. yo

    er... i think i can see your friends but i cant see whom u r friends of....

    ReplyDelete
  36. I need my sleep. Yes, really.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Thanks. Need to take a printout of this page and carry it home today :)

    ReplyDelete
  38. We have a friend who's daughter is called Ananya. Anukrit is not bad, too. Thanks !

    ReplyDelete
  39. iMho, keep the Nair, serves as a good non-first-name sounding Surname. imagine 30 years from now, he and his wife would have to pick up the phone and say "Hello, you've reached the Madhavs' residence" or maybe his telepathic telephone receiver would do it for him, but still.

    your daughter would be known as Miss Madhav.
    your doughter-in-law would be known as Mrs madhav.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I like Bengali names too. Dibyanshu / Divyanshu for instance - a little piece of divinity. Sounds very fairy-tale like to me like angeldust or a falling star.

    ReplyDelete
  41. er...what exactly is the problem ? I already have a Mrs Madhav in the house.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Now be a good mallu and name the kid something from :-

    Soju
    sijon
    noji
    jipu
    jingu
    baijon
    bija
    baija
    shaijib
    bujish
    or any other two syllable combination including Ju, Sh and B

    ReplyDelete
  43. Shouldn't she be Mrs Nair?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Oh, that helps a lot. Thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  45. also,... chackochan, babychan, manuchan, annamma, kuttamma, babykutty.. you get the principle.. right?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Anamika Madhav - that has a good ring to it. And it can be shortened/'westernized' to Anna Madhav, if the need arises.

    Varuna Madhav. On second thoughts, may be not.

    Madhuri Madhav is a mouthful.

    Indulekha Madhavan - that is about as much seeped in mallu culture as one can get.

    ReplyDelete
  47. i like dhruv too

    ReplyDelete
  48. for girls; maitri, sindhu, diya, kushee, ritu.
    if you don't mind a western sounding name, i like johanna for hope.

    and if it helps/you are intrested in names as such...
    my cousins who are indians now living in australia are called,
    sunil that can be change rto neil (if he chose to be called that)
    and sumanth; he's called monty.

    i quite like the name raghu too.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Considering that the names have to sound good with 'Madhav', these ae my choices:-

    Girl:Devi(ka), Renu(ka), Veena.
    Boy: Uday,Jay,Dhanush.

    ReplyDelete