Just wait till you read this..!
While we all know Shakespeare’s famous line from Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, what we miss out on, is the deep rooted tradition in India while christening at birth or even when a bride gets married.
Just as most of the communities in India, the Maharashtrians are also largely a male dominated society. As a result, Maharashtrians follow a partially patronymic naming system. For example, it is customary to associate the father’s name as the middle name with the given name. In the case of married women, it’s the husband’s name which is associated with the given name. Therefore, the constituents of a Maharashtrian name are – given name (first name), father/husband (Middle name), family name (surname). For example:
1. Sunil Manohar Gavaskar: Here, Sunil is the given name, Manohar is his father’s given name and Gavaskar is his father’s family name.
2. Pratibha Devisingh Patil: Here, Pratibha is the given name, Devisingh is the husband’s given name, and Patil is the husband’s family name.
When it comes to surnames, a large number of Maharashtrian surnames are derived by adding the suffix ‘kar’ to the village from which the family originally hailed. For example, Junnarkar came from the town of Junnar, Vengurlekar are from Vengurla, Kudalkar are from Kudal. Surnames like Sutar (carpenter), Pandit (learned Brahmin), Poojary ( Priest), Kumbhar (Potter), Deshkmukh/Patil (village sarpanch) denote the family’s ancestral trade or profession. Families of the historical Maratha chiefs use their clan name as their surname for e.g. Jadhav, Bhosale, Chavan, Shinde, Pawar etc.
As you can see, amongst Hindu Maharashtrians, the full name is like a “kundli”. It tells much more about you than just your name. Besides identifying your ancestral lineage through your family name and the identity of your father or spouse, it usually also indicates which geographical region you are likely to be from. If one goes a bit deeper, then one can even nuance the sub-caste like Bandekar (Gaud Saraswat Brahmin), Prabhu / Kulkarni ( North Kanara Gaud Saraswat Brahmin) Since government benefits have been designed to benefit particular communities – basis the caste or sub caste, it is also possible to get to know the government benefits one is likely/ not likely to be entitled to, taking a look at a person’s name.
Traditionally, post marriage as the bride relocates from her parent’s family to stay with her husband, she completely shades her identity. Not only is her father’s name and her maiden family name dropped to take on her husband’s name as her middle name but also her husbands’ family name becomes hers as well. There are times when the husband insists on choosing her post marriage given name as well. For instance if the husband is Anil, then the chosen name for the bride is more likely to be Anila as Anil-Anila seem to sound better, or there are instances wherein the bridegroom opts for a name for his bride based on the initials as per the horoscope/Kundli.
However, in my case, since my upbringing has been from a liberal family, I and my better half decided to break away from societal norms and build our own identity. Post marriage, we decided not to fall for the male chauvinistic tradition of the lady having to take up her spouse’s family name. My family name is “Datar” and my wife’s is “Gore”. As she had indicated her wish to retain her family name, my family encouraged her to retain her maiden name as well as family name. Quite a few of our friends and relatives cautioned her against breaking the tradition more for the practical challenges she was likely to face due to the red tape every married woman needs to go through to establish her new identity. However, given the fact that India is a progressive nation with a dream to make an impact on the world stage, instead of getting bogged down, we decided to go ahead and be the ones to make a difference.
Tryst with bureaucracy
Our first tryst with the bureaucracy was when it came to getting my wife’s name added to the family’s ration card. When she went to the rationing office, they asked her for the marriage certificate. By default the clerk wanted to add my family name to her maiden name. She had to explain that she had opted to continue with her maiden family name. The clerk flatly refused saying it wasn’t allowed! She insisted on talking to his senior for a resolution. Fortunately for her, the senior was a man of reason. He heard her out and asked her to write a self attested affidavit of sorts to accept her wish to get her name added, as is, to our family ration card.
Next, it was the turn of her passport when it was up for renewal. She went through a similar drill after the desk officer raised his eyebrows and extolled the tradition of naming conventions. She was asked to get an affidavit (this time around on a legal paper) which finally helped close the matter.
Naming your child – practices around the world
In the USA, at birth there is a tradition of parents giving two given names to their child. It is said this is done to give flexibility to them to choose one when they come of age or sometimes, the second name is the name given by the godmother or the foster mother.
In India, Bengalis are known to have a tradition of giving two names – one is known as the bhalo nam (legal name) and the other as the dak nam which is something similar to a nickname. However, in both the instances mentioned above the family name for the child is from the father’s side. Amongst Maharashtrians, as they are stepping out in the world, we have started to see instances where couples are opting out of the patronymic naming system. For e.g one of my cousins who is settled in the USA, has opted for her son to take her family name for surname while keeping her husband’s name as the middle name. As for her daughter, she has preferred to take her husband’s family name for surname and have her own nickname as her middle name. In the case of another of my cousins, also settled in the USA, for her twin daughters, she has opted to have her own name as the middle name for one and her husbands’ name for the other while opting to stay with her husband’s family name for surname.
Naming our first child
In our case, when our son was born and it was time to get his name on the birth certificate, we too had decided not to get bogged down by the patronymic naming system. We opted to drop the middle name for our kids and take both our family’s names i.e Gore-Datar as their surname. Lately, some of the modern thinking parents have gone one step forward and started to opt for both the parents’ first names as the surname, totally dropping both the parent’s family names . For e.g in the case of my son it could have been Nissim Salil Rupali.
Persistence & patience helped, as we decided to break away from tradition -Some lighter moments :In those days, the birth certificate would still be handwritten. So when my wife went to the municipal office to get the birth certificate, the desk officer once again was at odds with the proposed family name. He argued and debated and would not yield. As a middle ground, he issued the certificate with only my son’s first name, Nissim, leaving the surname to one’s imagination.
For his passport, we had gone armed with an affidavit and were prepared to appear in person for explanation but to our surprise we received the passport with the correct name & no questions asked! When our kids were admitted to the school, in spite of being registered as Gore-Datar, during the roll call, the class teacher would invariably call out the name as Datar assuming Gore to be the middle name. Kids would come home and then we would give them a letter or occasionally even trek to the school to explain to the class teacher who would then reluctantly agree to call out as Gore-Datar. This drill continued till my son reached 3rd standard after which he mustered enough courage to walk across to the teacher to get his correction done. This drill made our kids to be known in the school as the Gore-Datar kids.
Next, we faced the hurdle at the time of filling in the examination forms for the ICSE Boards. The ICSE’s computerised systems would not accept the hyphen as it was a special character. The school called to inform us about the predicament and convinced us to accept a space as a via media solution, so it became Gore Datar. The most hilarious part was when it came to getting my daughter enrolled in college after her Xth Boards. The junior college registrar made a total mess as he got confused. He got her enrolled as Sanaa Salil Datar Gore Datar. I had to go across to the college to get this rectified to Sanaa Gore-Datar. In college, my daughter’s hyphenated surname name always stood out during the roll call. One of the Professors who was a typical traditionalist, decided to poke some fun by wondering aloud in an open class about Sanaa’s post marriage likely predicament wrt the surname her children would take.
And finally, the most hilarious of it all was when it came to getting the kids registered for their election cards. Even though the election card form gives the leeway and has no compulsion to have a middle name, from the time we submitted the form, since we had decided to persist till they got it right, the name which got printed on the card went through a series of variations starting from Nissim Salil Gore Datar to Nissim Datar Gore until finally they got it right with Nissim Gore Datar.
So now you know what’s in a name? It’s time for you to decide – if you want to be known on the basis of your ancestral identity or would like to step out and opt to create your own identity. Cheers !
Acknowledgements: My friend Ashish Parulekar for being part of my blog support team.
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References:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name
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