235 thoughts on “What’s in a Name?”

1. I’ve claimed that bond and lived that bond, so stop making moronic assumptions for the sake of hearing your own smug trollery as you sit safely behind the anonymity of a screenname.

   i wonder if this individual’s posts are deleted often? he/she has a long track record of abusive comments.

   btw, you’re black! deal with it.

2. Going back to Taz’s post:

   Would CBS have reacted the way she did, had Nirva signed her e-mail with a ‘Betty’ or ‘Cindy’?

   Reminds me of when I volunteered to do some “get out the vote” phone banking from a local candidate’s headquarters a couple of years ago. Caller after caller shouted at me and slammed the phone down until I started calling myself “Ann.”

3. JayV (#15 and #16’s) comments make perfect sense. It is well known that bicycles are the representative form of commute for the average American, as opposed to cabs for Indians, and the backs of crowded trucks for Mexicans….

   (rest of Rahul’s witty commentary at #33 deleted)

   If I am in the market for something I like to find the price of stuff first. Go on Ebay, look at other listings etc. It is not that difficult. I’ve never heard of the brand Nishiki and I found out the price range in about 30 seconds.

   The basic debate is about whether CBS was initially offensive because he/she did not want to deal with an immigrant or was it because he/she was pissed at stupid questions asked by the buyer. I am firmly on the side of the latter. Doesn’t make CBS a good person but just a different kind of shit head.

4. I happen to be one of those few desis with an American name (it’s Brian), and yet most people tend to refer to me by my last name or some variation of it. And whenever I tell desi people my name they wonder why the hell I don’t have an Indian name.

   Me, too. It is frustrating to explain to people also that this was not my parents’ attempts to give me a “white-washed” first name.

   Also, on Kalpen Modi and the name game, here is my favorite economics article, ever, on black v. white racial discrimination in hiring (proxying names for race) — cowritten, coincidentally, by a southie: “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?”

   With respect to names and naming, my parents and I always joke that if I can bother to learn to pronounce a bunch of Western European origin names, then other people can learn how to pronounce a subcontinental name. I think this is about respect and inclusion and the larger idea of a multicultural society. But ultimately, I don’t think that names, name-changing, etc., will make a lick of difference when it comes to curbing racist behavior.

5. i wonder if this individual’s posts are deleted often? he/she has a long track record of abusive comments. btw, you’re black! deal with it.

   me? abusive? ok.

   happy to be black.

6. Most of us 1st gen immigrants have had to deal with these kind of ‘fresh of the boat’ comments, not from Americans but our ‘fellow South Asian’ ABCDs. And its not limited to comments, but parodies of our accents , dress sense and even worse. Personally it does not affect me at all, I pity ABCDs whose only sense of self worth comes from their American accent and their pathetically metrosexual sense of style.

7. From what I know, Sacha Baron Cohen basically wanted to pick some random nationality that sounded like it seemed far away from Britain (and now the US too, obviously). Apparently, Kazakhstan sounded suitably “distant”, although the earlier versions of Borat were actually Moldovan and Albanian respectively.

   Personally I think it would have been wiser for him to have fabricated a country rather than picking a real one, especially as I remember what it was like when many English “comedians” would make similar jokes and impressions at the expense of British (South) Asians. It’s not a pleasant experience, and I can only imagine how hurtful all this must be to actual Kazakhs. I’m assuming Cohen himself must also remember the “humour” targetted at desis in the UK — along with the local black population — which was once so prevalent in the mainstream British media.

   However, with regards to the “throw the Jew down the well” jokes and Borat’s general anti-semitism, bear in mind that there is a deliberate underlying streak of irony here because Cohen himself is from quite a conservative Jewish family and is a practising Jew himself. I’m sure we can all think of plenty of hypothetical Indian equivalents where a member of one ethnic/religious group could pretend to be from another background and make jokes about his “real” affiliation in an attempt to expose such bigotry.

   Overall I have mixed feelings about Borat. He can be extremely funny — and the clips I’ve seen of the movie look hilarious (by all accounts it really is) — but it would still have been better for his nationality to be a fake one. His current incarnation does make it difficult to tell if the joke really is completely on the people being filmed who have no idea that Borat isn’t “real” or, in part at least, inadvertantly about Kazakhs.

8. Go to Singapore and check out the racism you will encounter from Chinese folks there. They are quite open about it – try calling a Chinese landlord and he/she will tell you point blank that he/she does not rent his house to Indians.

   Unfortunately, we Indians in India are equally unkind to them (East Asian races)…just look at the casual racism often encountered by Nepalis/Tibetans in Indian cities and in the MSM in India. Two wrongs don’t make things right, of course. I think this will change with globalization, but pretty slowly.

9. One hilarious episode was when he turns up at a party in Washington for a pro-Israeli organization, in a serious discussion with a matron about whether cluster bombing Lebanese village to get the eggplants in the field well roasted for Baba Ghanouj…….

   Bleeding Dil, it’s NIIIICE, I LIIIIKE!!!!! JAGSHEMASH!!!

   I think Sacha Cohen is perfectly within his rights to use his talents to ridicule whichever political group/view/stand he wants to and can get away with. We should not expect him to carry the burden of the world’s racists and problems. If your hypothetical Arab comedian emerges soon, I will cheer him/her equally!!!

10. Do you do this when name and ethnicity don’t matter, or when they become more of a direct disadvantage?

    The former not the later. I have consciously tried to use my really really Indian name whenever i think it matter (+-vely). But I do know few older people who try to shorten/americanize their names to fit in.

11. Last night, when I introduced Abhi to Nirva at The Throws concert…

    Abhi, coyly sliding up next to her & feigning pick-up line smoothness, “So Nirva, I’ve been meaning to ask you… what boat did you just get off of?”

    I can’t introduce this guy to any of my gals, I swear…

12. I can’t believe noone has said the obvious yet.

    What are Indian parents thinking when they pick nonsensical names like Nirva for their kids? As far as I can tell, it is not an Indian name, not does it have any identifiable ethnic origin.

    There are many perfectly nice Indian names which are easily recognized by many non-Indians. It seems like there is a competition among Indian parents for coming up with the most obscure names for their kids.

    The book “Freakonomics” goes into detail about black parents picking made-up names like “Roshanda” for their kids, and the price their kids pay for it. The same goes for names like Nirva as well. In my opinion, the “Whateva” response was quite funny. Someone with a name like Nirva should be prepared for comments like that, and stop complaining. (or change their name; it is not too hard to do).

13. I happen to be one of those few desis with an American name (it’s Brian), and yet most people tend to refer to me by my last name or some variation of it. And whenever I tell desi people my name they wonder why the hell I don’t have an Indian name.

    Whoa – same here (my name’s Brian, too)! Being Malayalee, people tend to wonder why I have two first names…

14. Hey Soundsgood2me ease up on my name. My name has meaning: quiet or perseverance (the meaning i like best personally) depending on the spelling. And it’s a take off of the name Nirav. It’s a rare name but I’ve come across Indian folks and people from around the world who have that name (mainly the Carribean). It’s been a real pleasure to read most people’s comments but there’s no need to be rude.

    I liked what Ravi the Kurler had to say about names and being connected to his name. I personally refuse to change my name for the sake of letting non-South Asians off the hook in name pronunciations. I was born and raised here all my life and I can’t be accepted for my name? I found that ridiculous which is why I responded to her…No she’s not South Asian or of any Asian/Middle Eastern descent. Not to mention I’m a serious activist when it comes to immigrant rights.

    Hairy-D hahaha I have a couple of friends who are really into the bike community I’m gonna work with them and build a bike most likely….I guess that means it’s the bike kitchens for me!

    Abhi- you cracked me up with your one-liner last night so forget what Taz says 😉

    It’s really funny seeing how many comments have come in…When Taz said she wanted to blog this, I had no idea there’d be comments…Keep bloggin people. Take care!

15. …black.

16. soundsgood2me(#62) , you are of course entitled to your views, but I personally like it when people have unusual/interesting names. I usually ask people with unusual names how they got them, what they mean, etc, and I often end up learning an interesting thing or two.

17. Indian_immigrant:

    Most of us 1st gen immigrants have had to deal with these kind of ‘fresh of the boat’ comments, not from Americans but our ‘fellow South Asian’ ABCDs. And its not limited to comments, but parodies of our accents , dress sense and even worse. Personally it does not affect me at all, I pity ABCDs whose only sense of self worth comes from their American accent and their pathetically metrosexual sense of style.

    So true. You kind of shake it off when the comments are from a person who doesn’t know a whole lot about other cultures. Comments from 2-geners are mostly out of hatred (and not ignorance). They know who you are and where you come from. On one hand, these people (2nd-geners) cry foul every time someone asks them “where r u really from”..and on the other hand, they habitually dish out hateful remarks to fellow “South Asians”. Talk about dual standards !

18. Nirva,

    Your name is not that uncommon. There is a huge deterrgent company in India named Nirva – It was named after the daughter of the owner, and it used to have his daughter’s picture in sparkling whites as a trademark. I am not sure whether the company is still around, or it merged but that is an aside issue.

19. nerva.

20. Nirva, Your name is not that uncommon. There is a huge deterrgent company in India named Nirva – It was named after the daughter of the owner, and it used to have his daughter’s picture in sparkling whites as a trademark. I am not sure whether the company is still around, or it merged but that is an aside issue.

    That’s NirMa.

21. That’s NirMa

    you are right, sorry.

22. Ya it’s Nirma Washing Powder…Every time I’d go to India my cousins would sing the theme song to me…lol

23. Jai Singh:

    Personally I think it would have been wiser for him to have fabricated a country rather than picking a real one, especially as I remember what it was like when many English “comedians” would make similar jokes and impressions at the expense of British (South) Asians.

    David Baddiel in TIME Magazine:

    “There’s something funny about it being a genuine place,” says fellow British comedian David Baddiel, who went to the same private high school and Cambridge a few years before Baron Cohen. “That’s what makes Sacha’s comedy modern, because if that had been an older comedian, Borat would have been from Stupidlandia or something.”

24. Kush, are you talking about Nirma? ….Washing powder nirma, washing powder nirma, Nirma! and Nirma detergent tikiya – iski chaag ne to jaadu kar diya…..paani me rehkar bhi yeh kam gale, dheron kapde dhoye aur zyada chale, Nirma detergent tikiya….

25. Indian_immigrant: Most of us 1st gen immigrants have had to deal with these kind of ‘fresh of the boat’ comments, not from Americans but our ‘fellow South Asian’ ABCDs. And its not limited to comments, but parodies of our accents , dress sense and even worse. Personally it does not affect me at all, I pity ABCDs whose only sense of self worth comes from their American accent and their pathetically metrosexual sense of style. So true. You kind of shake it off when the comments are from a person who doesn’t know a whole lot about other cultures. Comments from 2-geners are mostly out of hatred (and not ignorance). They know who you are and where you come from. On one hand, these people (2nd-geners) cry foul every time someone asks them “where r u really from”..and on the other hand, they habitually dish out hateful remarks to fellow “South Asians”. Talk about dual standards !

    Exactly. Too see such sensitivity from ABCDs of all people is ironic .They are often the worst offenders when it comes to putting down new immigrants from India. I can’t help but be quite glad that they get a little taste of what we deal with quite often. Suck it up ABCDs. Hopefully now you will get a clue why imitating someone with an Apu accent and calling them FOB is not really conducive to grand visions of a pan ‘South Asian’ identity.

26. I am not sure whether the company is still around

    Nirma is very much around and had close to half a Billion US $ sales per year and provides employments to many thousands. This is company started by a man who started selling detergent soap door to door. Rags-to-riches story.

27. Suck it up ABCDs. Hopefully now you will get a clue why imitating someone with an Apu accent and calling them FOB is not really conducive to grand visions of a pan ‘South Asian’ identity.

    Just chill yaar. I’ve seen my share of “ABCD” attitude, but this forum is definitely a whole lot more inclusive. We’re all in this (name and pronunciation etc) boat together.

    Nirva, I like your name, and thanks for explaining what it means.

28. Can I just put this out there? I really hate the term ABCD. 1st gen, 2nd gen, 1.5 whatever. I was born and raised in the States. My parents were born and raised in India. That means me Indian-American.

    Yes, it can be confusing and frustrating. I want to be Indian and American and sometimes it feels like no one wants me as part of their group. Does this sob story consume my life? Well, it depends on the day.

    Yes, I want people to recognize both parts of my life – the duality, if you will. Yes, I expect people to give my (admittedly difficult) name a try.

    Is this all we (desi-Americans – and perhaps I can include other diasporic desis?) think about every minute of every day of our lives? No. But this is a diasporic blog, and so these are the types of issues that are going to come up.

    By saying you’re glad we get a taste of our own medicine (because, of course, all desi-Americans make fun of your accents and refer to you as a FOB, right?) you also are perpetuating a stereotype of yourself, and are not doing a thing to help a pan-South Asian identity. Responding to perceived hatred with more hatred is not going to fix anything.

29. My name is Sonia. Ha.

    My last name’s a bit tricky, though. Not even other Indians can tell that “Aery” is an Indian last name. Whatev, I deal with it each time.

30. I cannot tell you how many times at Starbucks, restauraunts or whatever I’ve been asked “So, how do you spell Taz?” It’s almost comical.

    Er, it could be Tazz or even Tas, right?

31. Like JayV said (#15), our bike seller probably just found it incredible that anyone would think a new Nishiki frame would be $80. Of course, all they needed to say was “are you crazy?” rather than putting a racial spin on the comment.

    Folks like CBS arenÂ’t worth getting so bent out of shape over; probably just some dim-witted high school kid trying to unload his bicycles. In fact, getting defensive and angry rarely changes such a personÂ’s thinking.

    I’d respond with something that’ll just confuse him.
    Like:

    “Actually, I just stepped off the Love Boat” or

    “Actually, I swam over. I’m a tri-athlete – that’s why I’m looking for a bike.” or

    “Ok, $80 for the used frames. Does that come with a 10% anti-immigrant discount?”

32. Nirma is very much around and had close to half a Billion US $ sales per year and provides employments to many thousands. This is company started by a man who started selling detergent soap door to door. Rags-to-riches story.

    Nirma’s success is one of the most studied stories in Indian business history, both in India and outside. I am having trouble finding links online, except for this one. Quoting:

    But its brand appeal itself rested on little more than a catchy jingle, and, unlike its competition, offered no psychological value. What was bewildering to large companies like Lever was that despite the crudity of his methods, Patel was able to repeat his success in one product category after another, first in detergent powders, stealing substantial volumes from Surf, and then in the detergent bars category, from Lever’s Rin. Thereafter, Nirma proceeded to threaten Lever as well in premium toilet soaps (e.g., Lux) and popular bathing soaps (e.g., Lifebuoy), all with one brand name, Nirma, and relatively minimal advertising outlay. Lever’s executives spoke of this with all the horror of watching an enemy inexorably advance to the heart of their fortress, in this case, the company’s core brands, unaffected by all their counterattacks. Like politics, this too was war by other means. At work here was a different philosophy of market expansion. Nirma, Ltd. followed a different method of building brand loyalty and expanding its consumer base, with respect to multinationals. It allowed a product to circulate in the hinterland markets for a period of two or more years and to build its base; it observed consumer responses to it; and it incorporated this information in the decision whether to finally promote it or not. Generous margins for wholesalers and retailers ensured that the company would not suffer for lack of a field force such as that employed by the large companies. Multinationals, for their part, perform market trials over a short period of time, usually followed by a major publicity blitz.

    Also, though it does not say here, the daughter’s name was Nirupama.

33. I cannot tell you how many times at Starbucks, restauraunts or whatever I’ve been asked “So, how do you spell Taz?” It’s almost comical. Er, it could be Tazz or even Tas, right?

    It’s a nickname after a common CARTOON character. I mean, it’d be one thing if it was short for something (my bhalu nam is not that similar to the nick), but really it is just name after a cartoom character. so it’s silly to misspell it.

34. …black.

35. Can I just put this out there? I really hate the term ABCD. 1st gen, 2nd gen, 1.5 whatever. I was born and raised in the States. My parents were born and raised in India. That means me Indian-American.

    Tamasha, I apologize for usage of the term. I do understand it is derogatory, as much as the term FOB is (by what it conveys). I use the term “ABCD” exclusively as a derogatory term for those 2-gens who give me the “attitude” the minute they find out where I’m from, without trying to get to know me or anything. Definitely, not all 2-gens or Indian-Americans are like that, especially those on this forum.

36. This all seems like a terribly unfortunate misunderstanding. Craigslist isn’t quite the home of the morally/mentally superior either. I actually thought it was a play on her name that went something like “what nerve!” but I could be wrong. Add me to the list of people that isn’t really blinking an eye.

    And by the way, as an Indian Christian with the first name ‘Meena’ I consider myself very lucky that my name is not Americanized, like so many are, but I don’t think its fair to judge Kalpen Modi (and perhaps, in turn, Mindy Kaling/Vera Chokalingam (sp?)) for something that just seems to have a better ring to it in a business that is entirely superficially driven.

37. LOL. i always laugh when i see “choka-lingam.” am i evil? 🙂

    btw, mindy doesn’t know a brown language. her mother speaks bengali, hindi and english, and her father tamil and english, so she grew up with english.

38. One of my brothers-in-law is a white American with a pretty standard name of Bruce Hall. He tells me that sometimes he, too, gets the “can you spell that” question. Chalk it up to our political correctness, or the quality of schools. I don’t know which.

    I used to travel to Hong Kong on business every few months for a period of ten years. Almost all the Chinese I worked with had Anglo-Saxon handles, not as a sell-out but just to facilitate things for the visiting customers and suppliers. I personally haven’t done that, but one wonders if there is a cultural difference between Indians and Chinese that makes one race obsess over the anglicizing of their names and the other race blithely adopting monikers while still keeping their real names intact.

39. Not evil. I called that too.

40. I personally haven’t done that, but one wonders if there is a cultural difference between Indians and Chinese that makes one race obsess over the anglicizing of their names and the other race blithely adopting monikers while still keeping their real names intact.

    how exactly would you ‘anglicize’ many chinese names? some muslims have which are easily anglicizable because of a common semitic root. similarly, some indian names have syllables which be extracted easily. i don’t think the same works with chinese names with a precise tonal sequence.

41. LOL. i always laugh when i see “choka-lingam.” am i evil? 🙂

    btw, mindy doesn’t know a brown language. her mother speaks bengali, hindi and english, and her father tamil and english, so she grew up with english.

    Yeah, I pretty much laughed at that name the first time I saw it too.

    I don’t know any other language fluently either because, although I have traveled to India every other year since I was three, nobody ever spoke malayalam with me. Only “Yenglish”. Plus, I’m scared of my “AB(C)D” (I also hate that term)accent coming out at inopportune moments and being laughed out of town.

42. No, no, I don’t mean anglicizing Chinese names. I meant anglican first names, like Raymond Chang, Eric Woo. They have these names printed on their business cards in English, but they will also have their real Chinese names printed in Chinese alphabets. This custom of the Chinese is only limited to the first name.

    Incidentally, isn’t the changing of first names fairly common in the US among most European immigrants even when the root words are not easily changeable? I am thinking primarily of Germanic, East European, Russian, not so much French/Italian etc.

43. No, no, I don’t mean anglicizing Chinese names. I meant anglican first names, like Raymond Chang, Eric Woo. They have these names printed on their business cards in English, but they will also have their real Chinese names printed in Chinese alphabets. This custom of the Chinese is only limited to the first name.

    yeah, my point is this: assume you have a name like “anil.” you can go by “nil,” and pronounce is like “neil.” if you are muslim and have a name like saira, ‘anglicizing’ is even easier because an english equivalent already exists from the common semitic root. on the other hand, consider hu jintao. first, hu is is ‘last name’ right, since the order is reversed in east asia. what about jintao? how would you anglicize it? jin? tao? seems easy enough, but i suspect that the tones would be so mangled so as to make both them pretty unrecognizable vis-a-vis their original chinese form. in contrast, going from anil -> neil is more intelligible, even if you are changing things.

    and, i can actually use a european example: my experience with people of hungarian origin (as one of my co-workers’ grandparents) is that if they had a magyar surname they changed it into something totally different because there wasn’t a point in preserving those names because they are inscrutable to english speakers. this obviously didn’t happen as much for scandinavians, whose last names like “anderson/andersen” are often similar to some english names (especially from northwest england, the danelaw).

    anyway, i’m just bring this up because i’ve heard the question mooted often “why do brown people keep their names and east asians not?” i think part of does have to do with attitudes toward assimilation, but i think with the chinese a big factor is that the linguistic chasm is too wide to really be bridged with any level of fidelity.

44. Let’s not forget the economic necessity of changing one’s beloved Indian first name. If one is a computer programmer, doctor or business exec, one can maintain the real Indian name very easily. If one has to sell real estate or insurance for a living, jobs that require contact with all and sundry, not all of whom are educated enough to learn Indian names, one has to do whatever is expedient to make a living.

45. “linguistic chasm is too wide to really be bridged with any level of fidelity”

    I am not too sure if the tonal gap between Chinese and English is the reason. Tones are mangled with Indian names, too. The degree of mangling may be irrelevant. I am wondering if the Chinese willingness to abandon Chinese first names altogether and just go for English names is a result of a very long immigrant history. The Chinese settled in almost every corner of the world. The Indians did not. But again, their immigration patterns and history may not explain it fully either.

46. I am not too sure if the tonal gap between Chinese and English is the reason. Tones are mangled with Indian names, too. The degree of mangling may be irrelevant.

    but if you mangle a chinese tone it can turn into another word. i had a friend whose chinese name always was pronounced as ‘bathtub’ or something by english speakers. they got the general gist of the syllables correct but their emphasis was ass-backwards.

    I am wondering if the Chinese willingness to abandon Chinese first names altogether and just go for English names is a result of a very long immigrant history. The Chinese settled in almost every corner of the world. The Indians did not. But again, their immigration patterns and history may not explain it fully either.

    indians have a long history in the middle east, east africa, the carribean, south africa, fiji, malaysia, etc. i am skeptical that that is it.

47. hello my name is gopi sheth

    every one tells me to go pee and then sh$!

48. “indians have a long history in the middle east, east africa, the carribean, south africa, fiji, malaysia, etc. i am skeptical that that is it.”

    By the way, have you noticed the attempt at phonetic spelling of Indian names in the Caribbean (my wife is a Trininad Indian) vs. the almost original Indian spelling in other countries. I always wonder about Laxman as it is spelled in India. I prefer the Trinidadian Lutchman, even though it is pronouncing the word in a street fashion, which was the case with the Indian indentured laborers brought to the Caribbean.

49. By the way, have you noticed the attempt at phonetic spelling of Indian names in the Caribbean (my wife is a Trininad Indian) vs. the almost original Indian spelling in other countries.

    transliteration is sketchy. my gf always complains that bengali names are written out inappropriately in relation to how they are pronounced (she’s a stickler for that shit).

50. tamasha :

    By saying you’re glad we get a taste of our own medicine (because, of course, all desi-Americans make fun of your accents and refer to you as a FOB, right?) you also are perpetuating a stereotype of yourself, and are not doing a thing to help a pan-South Asian identity. Responding to perceived hatred with more hatred is not going to fix anything.

    Hatred is a pretty strong word. Its not about hatred from my side, just annoyance that so many 2nd genners chose to judge 1st genners based on their accent or where they grew up. My experience is not an isolated one. We are routinely called Fresh off the boat , and much worse . I’m certainly not the only 1st gen immigrant who has been subjected to 2nd gen taunts. Its been pretty much a universal experience for my fellow immigrant peeps.

    And it is way more upsetting than being called off the boat via gasp an email exchange. So here we have a huge discussion about a pretty innocous email exchange in which an ABCD gets a small taste of what we 1st genners have to deal with much more often from our supposed ‘South Asian’ brothers. Can no one see the irony? As they say, what goes around comes around.

    There is such a huge disconnect between all this talk of South Asian solidarity when the fact is that there are huge walls of division in our community.