Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

On Choosing Names

By K. S.

I experienced the other day somewhat a surprise, a gentle surprise, which was by no means disagreeable. I was, in fact, quite unprepared for it, and it kept me amused for some time over those unaccountable fancies, which lay hold of the mind at all moments. The very phenomenon that they spring without reason must rather plead for than condemn them, for human minds will hardly be human if they are entirely free from fancies, from even those which are quaint and wholly harmless. The young man who was responsible for my surprise was certainly as unconscious of it as he looked. Indeed, how was he to know either that I am subject to a whimsical imagination, or his own name could ever have anything to do with it? Yet it was the name that did it, or I should not have felt in the least as I did.

Never could there have been a more genuine clash between the original and mentally-formed pictures. There was the unmistakable suggestion in the name, such as of the absence of youth, of dress far removed from the modern style, and of manners, unimpressive and old-fashioned. But how reality put to flight such shameful vision of the mind! If a regular anachronism had presented itself, one could not have been more truly bewildered. There stood the young man, looking smart in the latest cut of clothes, wearing glasses, (an indispensable attribute of true refinement), and with an unimpeachable address, all proclaiming against his inadequate name as loudly as they could.

It would have been only too fitting if he had one of those designations which fall trippingly from the lips, and are quite catching to the ears. One felt it would have carried him anywhere with much ease, and would have guarded him, like the staunchest of friends, against any amount of impudent unconcern.

But as it happened, this young man was given the wrong name, one of those homely ones, that you never hear but with absolute indifference. It bore no greater affinity to him than a Negro could to a white man. Its arid sound on the ears totally divested it of any dignity or charm that one might, with justice, wish to find in names in general. He was, probably, a younger child of his parents, who, having lost by death one or two children before him, sought in christening him an old convention, in their anxiety to preserve him. Such forms of convention, it is evident, can never entirely lose their significance for us, when we recognise that they still linger somewhere in the ground even in this advanced age.

My sensations on another occasion were of a very different kind. This time the person could scarcely do justice to the name she owned. A gulf seemed to separate the two. The little girl with her name looked like a figure of doubtful character in possession of a very precious jewel, the advent of which might reasonably provoke question. The beautiful name hung about her almost as a reproach. To be sure, I would not have despised her face half so much if she had an ordinary name, anything rather than the one so romantic. A plain, home-spun one would have fitted her to perfection. But it would be unjust taking to task the poor child for the misappropriation in which she, undoubtedly, had no part. Really could she be in any way responsible for the fault of her parents, whom vanity had rendered blind to the fact that their little child owned the least possible claim to such a lovely appellation? I fancy she might not feel at all sorry to part with it if she could.

"What is in a name?" Juliet asks. "That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." True, the rose would not be the less perfect for want of an equally perfect name. But that would not, I think, prevent one from wishing that the lovely flower may be called by a name fully worthy of it. And, assuredly, Romeo would have looked not at all the less handsome, had he been differently baptised. Yet is it not, also, exceedingly probable, if one may hold it, that Juliet might well have reflected with pleasure upon the happy accident that brought together Romeo and his beautiful name?

Just as we possess little control over our destinies, so it may be said of names that they appear to be as much pre-ordained by Providence. We have seen parents selecting names for their children with anxious care, or calling a favourite child after the name of some renowned personage, with the liveliest hopes that he would rise as eminently in life, but all to no purpose. For the irony of things wills otherwise, and an insignificant, mutilated, sorry version of it is all that remains sometimes of the much-cherished original.

There are certainly more things in a name than one would give credit for. We know mere nomenclature works wonders in some instances, while in others people apparently come to grief owing to no worse cause than their accidental association with some names.

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