What is 'NOT' in a SURNAME


This piece will be heavily lacking in rearched data and statistics. I had Dr Fahey's class today. It went off well as usual. The pressure is low in that class and i enjoy it more for that resaon. I can lie down and do my readings. I do not have to necessarily sit down in front of the computer. We started talking about his surname, FAHEY. He said, his name DAVID meant beloved but FAHEY meant nothing.

Now being the person I am, I give great priority to names. I am proud of my name and make an honest attempt to live up to it. It is not easy inculcating in one's self virtues such as sacrifice, pure love, unrelenting support et al, qualities that we are told Mother Earth embodies. But it is easier than living up to a name like 'Sundari'. I know one can argue very easily that one is talking about 'beauty skin deep' (I just wrote DIP..shit) but .....well you hopefully get my point !!!!

But the interesting question is , is it only our name that stands for our identity ? What about our surnames ? It is at this point I feel that some statistics would help. When asked your name, what do you say ? The First Name only or the Last Name too ? It will be different in different places I know. I mean in a job interview, one would say the entire name but what is the response in general ?

Considering that SURNAMES are still important to us....WHY DON'T THEY MEAN ANYTHING ?

Bhattacharjee ? Mukherjee ? Gupta ? Sharma ? Desai ? Patil ? Chaowdhury ? Selvi ? Rajagopal ? Some surnames that used to make me laugh a lot like bandukwala etc still make sense but compared to Urdu names like Muskaan, Zainab and Alifia do they stand a chance ? NO !!!

I can understand that a surname is not as unique as a name because the surname is shared by many but it still contributes towards how people are addressed, people are remembered and so it is but imperative that they mean something nice !!!!

Good question, but am I going to do anything about it ? NO.. As if I have all the time in the world !!

Disclaimer - I do not have an international audience for my blog but i still need to say that this blog was based on the Indian context.