Not all persons are lucky or happy with their given names over which they obviously had no choice or voice. So it is not uncommon that a disgruntled few get the names changed as they grow up. Many take recourse to numerology and effect such changes, like duplicating an alphabet or changing an ee or u to i or vice versa, to get the desired number. The yester actor whom I knew as Ajay, suddenly became Parikshit. Of course the film world has seen many actors tossing away the original names to don stylish ones even as they entered the tinsel stage, sterling examples are of Mohd Yusuf Khan aka Dilip Kumar or Rajiv Hari Om aka Akshay Kumar.
But the plain non-starry folks have to bear with their names ; a name like Swetha while the person is quite dark in complexion and an iconic name like Amitabh when the boy refuses to grow beyond five feet down the years may cause embarrassment to the name holders. I have had maids by the names Lakshmi and Saraswathi, bless them. They never seemed to be affected by the meanings that their names indicated. Each one went about her job dutifully. Likewise I have never had any complaint regarding my name and in fact I observed that quite a few relatives and friends bequeathed my name to their wards too. Before marriage I had no occasion to showcase my name publicly but when I stepped into a banking career a few years later I had to select a surname as a simple first name was unacceptable.
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I axed my maiden name which had two parts and affixed my husband’s name – rather than his surname – to it, for a good reason. My daughters
followed suit and we all would joke that we were striving to make his name famous. His surname was prone to wrong spellings and mispronunciations and I remember that an old uncle of mine took pleasure in making a mockery of it each time that he visited us, and laughed loudly at his own joke.
But of course the husband has been wedded to his strange surname and people continue to mispronounce it. Although a person has a lovely name like Krishna or Meera it is customary in certain states to address the person by the surname, be it a simple Patil or Rao, or an incredulous Sulebhavi or Thaleharate. There is no escape from this and this practice is also sometimes adopted in mass media.
Anyway my banker husband became successful in official circles, along with, or I must say, despite his surname. People become known through the names they have been associated with through the years. A friend of mine has carved an identity for herself with her husband’s first name affixed to hers, but she expressed her chagrin that of late she is being introduced with his surname affixed, and that she almost looks around for that person, not being able to personally identify herself with it. It seems strange to be deprived of your well-known identity that has been built over the decades. Introductions can be made with only first names too, as often seen in the West. An introduction should not turn into a moment of anxiety and embarrassment to the person concerned.
