When my parents gave my name in late 80’s, they would have thought they are setting a new trend in the neighborhood. In the street of Sriram and Thothary, there we were. Suresh and Bragadeesh. Thanks to a famous film star, my brother’s name didn’t suffer the fate of my name.
I don’t know why people found it difficult to spell my name or pronounce my name correctly. When the leader of the classroom noted my name in the board for mischief and over talking, it was always “Bragadesh”. It missed and ‘e’. When my friends introduced to their parents, I always had to repeat my name twice.
Friend: “Hi Ma! This is my friend”
Friend’s Mom : “Come here son! Take the sweets! What is your name?”
Me: “Bragadeesh Aunty”
Friend’s Mom : “Jagadeesh?”
Me : “No Aunty. Bragadeesh. My name starts with B. The one which comes after A”
Sometimes people get pissed of when I give this extra information. I had to because, when my name was recorded in our ration card for first time it was spelled “Pragadeesh Brasanna”. My father had to take countless trips to the government office to change it. By 2001, there was the census taken and old government school teachers came to survey the list of people in house.
The person gladly noted my name as Pradeep. I have no clue how he got that idea because both my names, don’t even come near Pradeep. I was a lone struggler then. My class had people like Satish, Balaji and the variants and their names were easy to recognize. But now this generation parents are taking the innovation to another complete level.
People sometime want to name their kids with name which starts from letter A, so that he will be first in school attendance. Some people even search names which necessitate double As. Just to make sure you know. What they don’t know is they are going to get earful from their teenage son, who sits in front bench for all his exams unable to help of get help from his class mates during exams.
Some people want to keep their great grandfather name to their kids, and they want it to start from the letter which the astrologer suggested after looking at the time of birth of kid which is also not old fashioned as their kid should not be teased at school. It is particularly hard when the name of the great grandfather is “Sambasiva Karunya Moorthy”
Today I went to beach with two of my friends. One of my friend’s colleague also came to beach with the family. The girl in our group asked the name of the kid.
She : “Sweety Pie! What is your name?”
Kid : “Krishanth”
The beach was loud and we were standing near the water. So my friend wanted to confirm again
She “Prashanth?”
Kid : “No! Krishanth. It starts with K”
There I saw a kid who will have to go through all I went through. I somehow pacified myself as he would not be alone at least.
Comments
Ha ha ! Interesting article. Btw, next time do add a little detail: ‘Bragadeesh’ as in the name of Lord Shiva ‘Bragadeeshwaran. 😀 Just to confuse people even more 😛
Hehe. Will do.
Nice. So why were you named so? Have a similar story, will blog
Grandma’s name is Brahadambal.. so dad and mum chose to call me with a name similar to that. Looking forward to ur post too.
Be happy that you have a rare name. Good names are hard to come by.
Joy always,
Susan
Thats true Susan
Super post Brags. I am reminded of the day when even a name as simple as mine can be murdered. My voters card read “Thiba” 😛
The main culprits are the voter’s id and ration card data entry operators. There is no quality checks and the operators have the luxury to play with our names 🙁
Awesome narration… Any how you got a peculiar name.
operator kalagam nanmaiyil mudindhadhu 🙂
Enga nanmayil mudinthathu.. Governemnt officers ku vena nanmai. ovvoru thadavai name change kum fees vangikittanga, under the table.
Rotfl…..chaaancela
Nandri
You at least still have your gender intact when called Pradeep and Brasanna. I have the record for being called by my second name !!!
In School or college or work??
Nice post Bragz 🙂 You’ve inspired me to write my own story soon 😉
Super post that was. 🙂
Ha nice post 🙂 Even I have encountered such incidents right from my school days. Some even convert it into a different name. Either they misspell like leaving the letter ‘h’ or will convert it into a different name 🙂
Over to http://prashanthashok1.blogspot.sg/2013/08/whats-in-spelling.html
All H related rants end up there 😛
hahaha this is fabulous 😀
I know how it feels .. more close when its Nitesh and Ritesh is more popular .. I explain the same Neee with a N !! and not Rrrr !!
Thankfully there have been no clerical errors so far in govt offices Still.. I think we should keep names like Pluto .. or Mercury .. so that the competition and the cousins of such names are less 😀
I like the pluto idea.. May be I will name my son Batman or Spiderman.. Avoids so much of confusion you see.
🙂
Hahaha… Hilarious…And even i have a similar story with my name which is far older and complicated than yours 😀
Nice post.. As a fellow unusual name bearer, I know that feel Prass
First when I saw your name in beach cleanup list I thought it was Deepa Narayanan.. You happily disappointed me at 4 AM that day
It would be a disappointment.. Agreed.. What is so Happy about that 😛