What’s in a Name….?

 

What’s in a Name….?

Recently there was a controversy about the naming of a baby. Yes I am talking about the Saif-Kareena kid ‘Jeh’ or his full name Jehangir Ali Khan. All the right wing trolls have started name calling left and right and are saying that the Jihadi mindset leads to such naming.

There was a controversy earlier too when they named their elder son Taimur. When Shakespeare said “What’s in a name, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” the bard made the meaning clear. He insists names are just that….NAMES and nothing else. But if you look deeper ‘Names’ are paradoxical.

One can argue that everything’s in a name and nothing is in a name. Take for example the name ‘Nike’. Well it is a brand name but still…… suppose you go to a shop and buy shoes without knowing the brand name and then suddenly they are revealed to be Nike shoes. What happens next, immediately your perception of the shoe varies. You look at them (the pair of shoes you were about to buy) with a new eye. Everything about the shoe varies… its design, colour and quality immediately hikes up.

But what when it comes to non-entities. Be it a new brand or a person. Now if we call the former non-entities you can say that since they are new and since they have no presence, we might. But when it comes to the latter that is persons/people we can’t say so. Saif Ali Khan or Kareena Kapoor may be highly recognizable names but a Ramesh, or a Satish (….sorry I couldn’t resist…!!) may be entities in their own right. They may not be as famous a Saif or Kareena but then they may be a name to reckon with, in their family circles, in their community, neighborhood etc.

Coming back to the beginning does a name matter…? Does Jeh or Taimur matter. Well it all depends on our perspective. Personally I feel…come on guys…..Jeh and Taimur are innocent kids. Don’t give colour to their name already, it is the personal decision of the parents to name them. The kids are in the budding stage of their life and it is a shame that we are judging them already. This is what I have to say to all their name callers …STOP NAMING….Period.