In this universe there is nothing that does not have a name. Thus the sun, the moon, the sky and all the heavenly bodies bear names. Similarly, the Earth, seas, rivers, trees, mountains, valleys and all non- living and living beings do have names.
The first important ceremony after a child is born is to baptise it. In a Hindu marriage there is an interesting occasion wherein both the groom and the bride pronounce the names of each other in poetic style. Moreover, a Hindu woman obtains a new name after her marriage and wives of this community usually do not utter the names of their husbands. Instead they make use of various pronouns in places of their husbands’ names!
Many a time surrounding circumstance influences the name of a child in the cradle. I remember, during the historic opinion poll of Goa, on the polling day itself, an anti-mergerist of my village then was gifted with a baby boy. And this niz Goemkar named him as “Sanghdeep”. Here ‘Sangh’ stood for sanghpradesh – Union Territory. Another parent from Bicholim named his daughter who was born during the Indo-Pak war in 1965 as ‘Kashmiri’! In the Seventh decade of the last century , the then PM of India Indira Gandhi imposed emergency over the country and put into effect the infamous MISA act that curbed the freedoms of citizens. During that period, a baby girl was born in the house of the then young leader of Bihar Lalu Prasad Yadav. And Laluji named this newcomer as ‘Misabharti’. This year , after the Pulwama attack, one elderly gentleman of our locality named his grandson as ‘Abhinandan’- the name of the courageous Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force.
Sometimes persons involved in the public affairs gain some distinctive names. The names Shenoy Goembab and Frontier Gandhi fall in this category.
We also come across names having contradictory meanings. Two names in English language can be cited as instances in this regard. One of them is the name ‘speaker’. It is the name of a person who is in charge of proceedings in a law making assembly. Actually, speaker means a person who speaks. But the above named person seldom speaks .On the contrary, he listens more what others speak .Therefore instead of speaker, ‘Listener’ would have been an appropriate name for this Authority.
Another instance is the name ‘waiter’ – an attendant in a restaurant. Usually, waiter means a person who waits. But waiters in hotels do not wait. On the contrary , customers are required to wait. Firstly, they wait for the waiter to approach them. Then they wait (eagerly) for the menu to arrive on the table and lastly for the bill. In fact the common people today have become the true waiters. More often than not these poor souls are destined to wait.
Last year, we have witnessed strong public outcry in our country due to changes in names. Thus the original names of cities, railway stations, islands, memorials, etc, were replaced by new ones.
This reminds us the wise words of the great poet William Shakespeare who once said that names do not matter and that a rose by any other name would always smell sweet!
