The Malayali's penchant for whacky names.

It is a known fact that Malayalis come up with the craziest names possible for their kids, something well attested by email-jokes floating around on this subject. And after having
come across Tina, Tiny, Gifty, Gift (as in Jassie Gift - a Malayalam music director), Mini,
Riju, Sinu, Sini, Sanu, Shine, Shiney etc, I thought I had come across the whackiest possible.

But No, we have the penchant for coming up with even more whackier names, as I learnt
when we had some guests over for lunch last Saturday. My sister's colleague had dropped
in at our place with her husband and two cute girls aged 7 and 3 years.

As I was introduced to them, I could not hide my amazement at the fact that they had
named the elder daughter as "Alpha". Well, while both the parents are teachers, I am sure
they don't teach Greek - so not sure why the affinity for the Greek alphabet ?

While the name can be construed as logical since it is their first kid and Alpha is the first
letter of the Greek Alphabet, how practical is it to name your kids as Alpha, Beta, Gamma
and so on ? I expected the second kid to be named 'Beta', but thank God that was not the
case. Well, it's their kid and their choice, but I fervently hope that the kid is not subjected
to teasing at school on the basis of her 'different' name.

Closer home, my name itself is quite whacky. I mean, for the hell of me, I have not been
able to figure out what my name 'Biju' means. And this inspite of googling a lot. It is some
consolation though that Wikipedia has a page on 'Biju'. The closest I have come across a
meaning for my name was when I was in Belgium a decade ago, and a Belgian colleague mentioned that "Bizou" in French means "jewel" or something similar. But then there is
a sea of a difference between Biju and Bizou.

I am glad we (actually it was my wife's choice) named my kid with something that has
meaning. His first name 'Aman' means "Peace" and while we hope he grows up at peace
with himself and with those around him, current indications of his behaviour is anything
but the opposite. :-) And his second name "Mathew" means "Gift of God" in the Hebrew
language, which ofcourse he is to us.

Actually, other Indian communities are catching up fast. :-) I know someone who named
his first-born son as "Pratham" which is Sanskrit for "First" - sort of like how "Alpha" is
in Greek. But I am glad he did not name his second kid as "Dwithiya", which in Sanskrit
means "Second". Phew !!!

And there was this Telugu friend of mine, whose Dad was a History teacher and due to
his passion for Indian history, named his 3 kids after prominent figures from ancient
Indian history. My friend himself was named Vikramaditya (after a king from the past),
though we just called him Vikram. His sister was named Sanghamitra, which was the
name of Emperor Ashoka's sister - I loved the name and had that name in my list if we
were to have a baby girl.

While these 2 names were pretty much OK, where the father went overboard was in
naming his eldest son as "Maharaj Ashok". Ashok is a common Indian name, but on
adding Maharaj (meaning Emperor), it became kind of whacky.