The most amazing thing about most Indian names ( the Hindu ones especially) is that they generally do have a meaning to them. And, many people find that fascinating. Most names are derived from Sanskrit or pure Hindi and these days the trend is keeping names which are so weird sounding.
I received an email sometime back from a lady in Scotland who wanted to know the meaning of Rachna as she had received a note from someone which mentioned rachna and was curious about the meaning. Rachna means creation and I would like to believe a beautiful creation :). It was not a very common name when I was growing up. Most people liked my name and some made a mess of pronouncing it by dragging it like ra- chaa-na :). Normally, in Hindu families, people see the rashi or the first letter of the name after the child is born by seeing the horoscope and then name the child but these days many people are doing away with that custom. My father named all us siblings starting with the letter R (nothing to do with rashi:) ).
Gurdev was named as he was born on Guruvaar ( Thursday) which is the day of Sai baba ( his father was a staunch believer of Sai Baba.
An interesting story about how we named Siddharth. I was very keen on a girl and we did not know the sex of the baby till he was born. We had shortlisted the name Neha if it was a girl and I guess some names for boys which I don’t remember now. Then a movie called “Dil Chahta Hai” was released and there was a character named Siddharth fondly called Sid in the movie. The name seemed to be beautiful, smart, contemporary and is also the name of Buddha ( we hoped that would grant Sid some wisdom :). Gurdev suggested this name and I loved it. So bingo, Siddharth was named. We lovingly call him Siddhu and for some reason he does not like to be called Sid.
Then 2006, when I was expecting Gautam. So all of us were really praying for a girl. Sid wanted a sister desperately and was praying to all the Gods he knew. But, again we had a boy. This time too we had shortlisted more girlie names and had a list of boy names too. We had not zeroed in on one. Gurdev said that after Gautam was born, Siddharth was very disappointed that he did not have a sister and Gurdev was dropping him and my mother-in-law home that same day and they were discussing boy names. Siddharth who was sulking till then selected Gautam for his brother and he had it finalized for us. So that is how Gautam was named! The beautiful thing is that both Gautam and Siddharth are the names of Buddha so essentially they mean the same. Many people think that we chose the names to mean the same but it happened more by coincidence :).
In my parents’ generation, the practice was to name the child after some God or another. I was given the name of the ‘presiding deity’ in the village that I was born. Others simply acquired the names of their grandfathers or grandmothers. Our names have no meaning. Sigh!
Yeah, I had forgotten that name, named after God. Even in my parents’ time, that was the trend. In the north, there were lots of Rams, Lakhans, Lakshmans, Sitas etc. I have seen so many Ventakeshes and Balajis here.
But, you know, your name means “to rule” in Hindi :). Even though, you were named after a deity!