Names and indentities

"Like in our traditional practice, he is named after his grandfather," my father commented.

The first born is named after the paternal grandparent.  How about the second child?  It depends.  If the second child is the same sex, then the name is the maternal grandparent's name.  A different sex means that the first two kids have the names of the paternal grandparents.  The mother's lineage is for leftovers!

In that tradition, I would have usually been given the name Ramaswamy--my paternal grandfather's name.  But, I wasn't.  The social norms were rapidly changing in the urban and industrial parts of India, and Ramaswamy was old fashioned a name.  Capturing the "Ram" in Ramaswamy, my father came up with Sriram.

I was also given an alias that was used in the formal, Hindu religious and ritualistic contexts: Venkataramasubramanian.  Boy am I glad that this multi-syllable name is not in the official records!

Traditional names are part of the cultural landscapes. Every cultural landscape has its own tradition.  The Icelandic last names are different from the Slavic ones, which are different from Nigerian.  You get the point.  Even within the cultures, traditions are being challenged. Like the Czechs questioning the gendering of last names.

But, even more challenging is when people with names from one culture move to lands with completely different cultures.  

I first got a taste of this as a graduate student when I was surrounded by students from China and South Korea.  "Strange" names with unusual spellings.  But, it was not a huge problem to overcome.  Mungjin and Rongsheng became familiar sounds. 

What I could not understand was a few students taking on Western, Christian names in order to make it easy for the natives.  Why they preferred to lose their identities was simply beyond my imagination and understanding, despite engaging with them about this issue.

I couldn't imagine walking around as "Sam" just because a few natives couldn't pronounce my name.  Sam I am not.  Nor am I a Sri.  I am Sriram, as I have always been.

A cardiologist, who is about my age, writes about her name--Xiaoyan Huang--in the Washington Post:

When I first came to the United States in the late 1980s, for college, I immediately realized that Americans had a hard time pronouncing my name. (Roughly, it’s see-ow yen.) Some people mocked the name; for others, mastering it was a genuine struggle. Meanwhile, among Asian students, I soon learned, my name put me on the lowest rung of the social ladder on campus. The kids who were born in America, or who immigrated with their parents at a young age, often had American names.

Of course, "Xiaoyan" stumps me when I read that string of letters.  It is new.  Just like Quixote was new to me.  Just like I had to learn to pronounce Foucault too!

How did she get that name?

Because Chinese civilization is built upon our profoundly metaphorical language, the words chosen for a baby’s given name are perceived as being critically important in the identity of that person. When I was born in Beijing, my parents carefully selected my given name using the traditional methods. But on his way to the district office to file my birth certificate — or so my parents told me — my father, in his usual romantic and impulsive way, decided unilaterally to change the name. He settled on “Xiao Yan.” “Yan” is a key component of my mother’s name, referencing Yan’an, her birth place — also a center of the Chinese Communist revolution — while “Xiao” means “small.” The name expresses his love for both of us.

I am glad that her professor in Oregon advised her to ditch adopting a Christian name: “Your name is your identity — stick with it”.

Yes!