What's In A Name?

Sometimes, I feel like we give too much importance to names. Our names, their names, everyone's names. And we forget the personality that lies underneath that name.

When I was born, my mom wanted to pick one of these two: Samta and Sneha. My friends say, "Thank God she did not pick Samta". I wonder, if being Samta would have changed anything. I would still look the same, have the same friends, have the same grades, pick the same profession, still live where I do, and still write blogs.

Many of us have been blessed with modern, short, and sweet-sounding names. The kind that are in vogue now. Raj, Rahul, Rohit, Isha, Riya, and what not! And therefore, we take the liberty of saying "Yikes! What a name!" when we hear a peer having a name such as "Chandrakant" or "Balaji". But can you imagine the plight of these people who get teased incessantly about a name that their parents gave them and they have no control over. So many children have known to suffer from low self-esteem solely because they hate their name.

And then we have the parents of the groom, and the groom himself who pester the bride to change her last name as soon as possible. Have the men wondered how it would be to be Raj Malhotra one day and be Raj Patel within one hour of a ceremony just because they got married? We hear brides say, "I want to feel part of the family and so I will". I wonder if its nothing but learned helplessness or accepting what society has it out to be.

So what's in a name?

Technically, nothing! It's just a label to identify different people.

Societally, it is your self-esteem. So the next time you reject a friendship or an alliance based on someone's name, stop to think. If someone's name is Nirodh, it could be that they were born before the contraceptives were introduced in India!