Everyone has a name and everything has a name too.
These names are given by us only. Human beings give a name to their children as
soon as they are born or a few days afterwards. In fact, names are given to
identify the person or things. Without a name, it is impossible to find out who
is who and what is what? Therefore humans while evolving learned to name people
and things.
The name of the male is distinctly different from that
of a female. Before a child is born the parents choose some attractive and
fashionable name for their son or daughter. It has become a custom all over the
world. In olden days, mostly the name of the grandparents are given to the
grandchildren in order to keep the family names alive. Even now in some
families, such customs prevail. In fact, my name Narayanan is that of my
grandfather. Many parents prefer to give their children the name of Gods and
Goddesses. In India, for example, the names of Shiva, Vishnu, Vinayaka, Rama,
Sita, Lakshmi, Saraswathi are commonly given. Naming a child is a family
function celebrated with family members and friends at home or in a hotel. One
thing my friend told me that almost all female names in India end either in “a”
or “i” or “e”. It’s a good observation. Think over…
The recent trend is
choosing a short name like Nila, Kala, Maha. Even if there is a very long name
like Ramachandran, it is shortened as Ram or Ramu or Chandran for easy calling.
But in a record, the original long name will be there. There are first, second
and third names too. It’s common in Western Countries. In India also we do find
such practice in some States. The first name is generally the name of the
village where he or she is born, the second name will be the name of the father
and the third would be the actual new name. It’s interesting to note that the
mother’s name is not added as the second name. Generally, the first two names
will be abbreviated as the initials only. In many cases, the last name
indicates the caste as Rao, Reddy, Iyer, Pillai, etc. However, adding a caste
name is slowly, very slowly vanishing nowadays.
Moreover, while talking to others we
use many names that the other person also knows. Thus it becomes easier for
communicating our thoughts. So the names are the key to knowing people or
things in our world. Plants are named, places are named, streets are named, and
cities are named. If you start writing the names you know in a notebook, it
will run into millions of pages. I don’t think anyone has tried this exercise.
If you don’t have anything to do, better start writing the names of whatever
you know. It would be a wonderful exercise indeed! - NARA
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