I think I heard this a long time ago in some old Malayalam movie
‘ Wht’s there in a name ?’
But believe me, there is a lot to do with a name, I am not talking about numerology which suggests a names starting with V is for Victory and each word and the sounds it makes is evil ‘Evil or Good’. What I am talking about is the names which have to go with the personality of each being.
In an average Indian family the naming comes with following factors
Grand parents name will be cut into pieces and jumbled around to find a word which looks like a name and ppl will start calling the poor baby with that.
The family name attached with one or the other god / saint’s name forms another name
Apart from this, it will be film star’s name, the local popular figure name.
It can be a popular Hero’s name in a movie followed by the Family name, Village name, Gothra and the list goes on. ( In 1980’s it was Vijay, 1990’s name Rahul was the favorite, then it turned to Raj in 1990 to 200 and the latest is names or sound what ever that starts with the Alpabet ‘A’)
Now a day, it is mostly the Dad names her daughter with their long lost love or Wife names her boy with her long last love! (This is a trend which I have noticed lately, it was only passwords earlier but now loved once are honored by naming their kids!)
Taking all of this into consideration, I was named after my Grandpa. Yes, his name was butchered around and fitted in to give me my name. But the name was not good enough for me or I was not fit enough for the name. That’s what I could make out from the list of nick names I had in these years.
Each of the nick names I got until now comes with a story attached to it. Small stories but stories! First and foremost was – ‘Viruthan Shanku’, later got cut shot to ‘Shanku’ which came as I was very small in size when compared to my cousin but ‘smart’, taking into consideration that I didn’t talk until 3, but always did what I was asked to do ( I am good at Dumb C ;)). Now adopted myself as ‘Shanks’ as I couldn’t get shanku!
The next name I got was a ‘Bhaiya’ attached to my original name and later my ,name faded off and ppl started calling me only ‘Bhaiya…’ That sounded good but it was only at home circle. By the time I reached my high school, my nick name was re assigned to ‘Kakka’. This refers to ‘crow’ in Malayalam. Thanks to my skin complexion and slim frame. I am invisible in dark nights until and unless I ‘smile-in-cheese-click’ mode. Also there was one more boy with my name, so I was called with a prefix of ‘Kakka’. It was like Kakka-XXXXX. This name went on until I completed my 10th. Going on with my Diploma, I had to move to middle Kerala from the south side. The south side (Thekkan) nativity which was more closer to Tamil Nadu, gave me a name ‘ Paandi’ which is the colloquial word for a tamilian in Kerala. My ‘Tamilian-looks’ was one of the factor other than the fact that I knew to speak in Tamil which encouraged ppl to call me Paandi. For the engineering college stint, I was spared and ppl called me with my original name. The same went in my office until I reached the current office location.
In last three months, I got almost 4 names, each with its own stories. First one was ‘Vista- man’ as I was the only person associated with the new windows operating system in the new work location. As I was all new in this crowd of strangers, I had introduced myself several times at several different places on different occasions. In each introduction, people were interested to hear about my Japan stint (or I had only one thing to talk everywhere, which was ‘Japan’). Anyways there were some unfortunate common audience to all of my introduction speeches who got bored of the Japan stuff (I can’t blame them; even I got bored telling the same things). They thought out and pre fixed my first two letters of my original name to form a new nick name for me, which forms ‘RA- JAPAN’. This was further faded to form Rajjappan and to Rayyappan in proper Trivandrum slang! This name got a sir name attached to it which was linked with my DMV incident where I forgot to put my seat belt for my driving test! So the name was further elongated to ‘Belt Rajjappan’. Some thing like ‘Sir CP’. Now after each introduction, as soon as I finish, there will be at least two ppl saying,
“He says his name is ‘XXXXX’ that but we dearly call him Rayyappan, Belt Rayyappan!’ Obviously ppl will be interested to know why and the story goes around !!!
Hey, got to go now, some one yelling at the door
“ Rayappooo, Vannu vathil thurakkada!!!”
Translation --
‘ Wht’s there in a name ?’
But believe me, there is a lot to do with a name, I am not talking about numerology which suggests a names starting with V is for Victory and each word and the sounds it makes is evil ‘Evil or Good’. What I am talking about is the names which have to go with the personality of each being.
In an average Indian family the naming comes with following factors
Grand parents name will be cut into pieces and jumbled around to find a word which looks like a name and ppl will start calling the poor baby with that.
The family name attached with one or the other god / saint’s name forms another name
Apart from this, it will be film star’s name, the local popular figure name.
It can be a popular Hero’s name in a movie followed by the Family name, Village name, Gothra and the list goes on. ( In 1980’s it was Vijay, 1990’s name Rahul was the favorite, then it turned to Raj in 1990 to 200 and the latest is names or sound what ever that starts with the Alpabet ‘A’)
Now a day, it is mostly the Dad names her daughter with their long lost love or Wife names her boy with her long last love! (This is a trend which I have noticed lately, it was only passwords earlier but now loved once are honored by naming their kids!)
Taking all of this into consideration, I was named after my Grandpa. Yes, his name was butchered around and fitted in to give me my name. But the name was not good enough for me or I was not fit enough for the name. That’s what I could make out from the list of nick names I had in these years.
Each of the nick names I got until now comes with a story attached to it. Small stories but stories! First and foremost was – ‘Viruthan Shanku’, later got cut shot to ‘Shanku’ which came as I was very small in size when compared to my cousin but ‘smart’, taking into consideration that I didn’t talk until 3, but always did what I was asked to do ( I am good at Dumb C ;)). Now adopted myself as ‘Shanks’ as I couldn’t get shanku!
The next name I got was a ‘Bhaiya’ attached to my original name and later my ,name faded off and ppl started calling me only ‘Bhaiya…’ That sounded good but it was only at home circle. By the time I reached my high school, my nick name was re assigned to ‘Kakka’. This refers to ‘crow’ in Malayalam. Thanks to my skin complexion and slim frame. I am invisible in dark nights until and unless I ‘smile-in-cheese-click’ mode. Also there was one more boy with my name, so I was called with a prefix of ‘Kakka’. It was like Kakka-XXXXX. This name went on until I completed my 10th. Going on with my Diploma, I had to move to middle Kerala from the south side. The south side (Thekkan) nativity which was more closer to Tamil Nadu, gave me a name ‘ Paandi’ which is the colloquial word for a tamilian in Kerala. My ‘Tamilian-looks’ was one of the factor other than the fact that I knew to speak in Tamil which encouraged ppl to call me Paandi. For the engineering college stint, I was spared and ppl called me with my original name. The same went in my office until I reached the current office location.
In last three months, I got almost 4 names, each with its own stories. First one was ‘Vista- man’ as I was the only person associated with the new windows operating system in the new work location. As I was all new in this crowd of strangers, I had introduced myself several times at several different places on different occasions. In each introduction, people were interested to hear about my Japan stint (or I had only one thing to talk everywhere, which was ‘Japan’). Anyways there were some unfortunate common audience to all of my introduction speeches who got bored of the Japan stuff (I can’t blame them; even I got bored telling the same things). They thought out and pre fixed my first two letters of my original name to form a new nick name for me, which forms ‘RA- JAPAN’. This was further faded to form Rajjappan and to Rayyappan in proper Trivandrum slang! This name got a sir name attached to it which was linked with my DMV incident where I forgot to put my seat belt for my driving test! So the name was further elongated to ‘Belt Rajjappan’. Some thing like ‘Sir CP’. Now after each introduction, as soon as I finish, there will be at least two ppl saying,
“He says his name is ‘XXXXX’ that but we dearly call him Rayyappan, Belt Rayyappan!’ Obviously ppl will be interested to know why and the story goes around !!!
Hey, got to go now, some one yelling at the door
“ Rayappooo, Vannu vathil thurakkada!!!”
Translation --
4 comments:
Hey.. Thats pretty humorous account of the pet-name culture.. You can hear the wackiest and weirdest nicknames arnd India.. maybe I can hear some in US :)
aahhaa...so many names,each one modified to something else but u know..kakka also means uncle in some language.And thank god rajjappan dint get modified further..may be to some thing like rajapalayam(a dog,the indian sighthound)Lol. hehehe
tats cool u hav put up the whole history of ur diff names...sum names carry a lot of responsibility with it..and sum are as sweet as sugar.
nice post..
# Thanks Anuz ji
It is humerous now but many names pizzed me off a lot of times :)
# Devilz ...
Thnks ji
Some how you always end up thinking about dogs rite ? Puppy luver ? By the way what was ur dogs name ? some ***** Kumar rite ? :)
# Thnkz Priya ji
Its pretty fun to have many names ... U can escape some calls saying I forgot my name ;)
cheers
Shanks
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