By H. H. Mohrmen
A rose called by any other name smells as sweet, or so goes the saying but a name given unthinkingly can be a perpetual embarrassment to the carrier of that name. Some say that a person’s name defines him or her. Others believe that names are only an identity which distinguishes one person from another. But what makes parents choose their children’s name with great care is because they know that names not only give identity to an individual, but that there it characterizes the person. Hence the christening ceremony in any culture is a serious matter. But among the Khasi- Jaintia people and even among Garos parents often give their children names that are odd and even funny. In many cases, parents obviously do not understand the meaning of the names they give their children. Sadly, the children with funny names have to carry on with these names much to their embarrassment.
People from other cultures (not surprisingly) are curious and sometimes ridicule the funny names that parents in our culture give their kids. During election season we have headlines in the newspapers deliberately playing with the candidate’s name when they screamed “Napoleon and Hitler are in the fray in Meghalaya” or “Hitler and Chamberline at each other’s throats or better still, ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are contesting the elections in Meghalaya.” But this is nothing compared to some of the weird names that parents give their children. Some have named their child Toilet (later modified to Tailet ). There are several persons named Ophisar or Captain. It is also a common practice to name people after the planets such as Jupiter, Full-moon, Venus, Comet, Starly, Rainbow. We also have people with names like Emperor, Kilo Meter, Yousee, Xmas and others.
It is also common to find Khasis named after western cities and countries, so we have persons named New York, Charlotte, Persia, Korea, Holland, Poland, England, New Zealand, Russia, Africa and Australia. Sometimes we have all the continents of the world in one family. In one election when the papers of the candidates were scrutinized, the opposition candidate raised objections that his rival had the word Doctor prefixed to his name. The candidate was asked to produce documents to prove that he is either a PhD degree holder or an MBBS. Pat came the answer from the candidate that the word doctor before his name is not a degree but it is part of his name. That was how his parents named him he explained and jokingly said, “My name is Doctor ABC.” And I am not surprised because if parents can name their son ‘Side Drain,’ I see no reason why they can’t name him Doctor, Engineer etc., In fact I know a person whose name is Scientist.
Because names are important hence every culture has some kind of christening ceremony. In the context of the Jaintia people the naming ceremony is known as “Bam syiñ.” In places like Nangjngi the ceremony is called ‘Chat-lane,” while among the War-Jaintia people the ceremony is called “Rim-ha” and in some other places it is called ‘noh mynso.’
In the past people not only gave traditional names to their kids but in some cases they named their children after the day they were born. The best place to look for old names among the Pnars’ of Jaintia Hills are at the ossuaries – the place where people inter the bones of the deceased member of the clan. Among the Pnars of Jaintia Hills there are beautiful traditional female names like ka Synchar, ka Syntu, ka Suna, ka Sbuh, ka Rophi, and ka Nerimai etc. We also have equally beautiful male traditional names like u Riata, u Riang, u Lo and others.
In the War Jaintia tradition the practice of naming the first child in the family with the father’s clan’s name is still prevalent, hence we have girls with names like ‘doh’ after her father’s surname ‘Lyngdoh’, ‘Chiang’ because her father is from a ‘Myrchiang’ clan, ‘Min’ because her father belongs to the ‘Lamin’ clan, ‘Riang’ because her father is from a Tariang clan and so on.
There is a tradition of naming a child after the day the baby was born too. A person is given the name of u or ‘ka Chai’ because she was born on ‘Muchai’ the first of the eight- day week tradition of the people in Jaintia hills. Similarly a person is named ‘Siang’ because he or she was born on ‘Musiang’ the market day, ‘Hat’ because one was born on the ‘Hat’, ‘Law’ because one was born on Khyllaw and the name ‘Siñ/Shing’ was given to a baby who was born on another day ‘Pynsiñ’ and person who was born on ‘Mulong’ the day before the market day is normally named as ‘Long’.
The traditional names are much better than the embarrassing English names. I say this from personal experience. I have an embarrassing English name too and I get fed up when people particularly those from the western world ask me the meaning of my name. When people hear name then they would also question whether my parents knew the meaning of it when they decided to give me that name. I think everybody with strange names has similar experiences. For those who do not know what the two ‘H’ before my family name stands for, well, it certainly does not mean ‘His Holiness’ because I do not even aspire to be one, but the first ‘H’ is from my father’s name ‘Hamkhein’ and the next ‘H’ is the name that my parents gave when I was named at the church and which stands for ‘Helpme.’ Yes that’s right ‘Helpme’ – that’s’ my name. And yes there are times that I feel embarrassed and so using the contraption ‘H.H,’ is an effort to make my name sound more normal and comfortable. But sometimes I put my name to good use and whenever people thank me for helping them I say. ‘it goes with the name.’
Having an odd name is not only embarrassing but it can also be a problem. I once had a strange experience for having an awkward name and the incident was when I decided to open a Facebook account of my own. Facebook repeatedly rejected my attempts to start a Facebook account. It kept saying that my name is not a real name, so Facebook considers my name ‘Helpme’ a fake name and did not allow me to register my account in my own name. So I had to play with my name till the Facebook accepted it as my real name and allowed me to open my Facebook page. This reminds me of an incident which another person with a strange name. He visited a government office and even though he came much earlier than anybody else, he chose be last in the queue. When the person in the counter asked him what his name was, his answer was, Same to you.” The official was perplexed. When he saw the strange look on her face he realized what happened and then he repeated his name and told her yet again that was his name. He also explained why he always stood last in the queue.
So names without meanings, especially if they are strange English names cause embarrassment to the person carrying that name. Many have in fact changed their names at adolescence when they released its actual meaning. Please spare people with awkward names more embarrassment and stop asking them the meaning of their names or why their parents gave them such a strange name. After all naming happens at childhood and we are not exactly in a position to decide our own names.