How Many No Money Boyz are Named…

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Ickitt.

Our bittersweet SepiaIcon(TM), (aka M.I.A., aka Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam) and her musician/son-of-billionaire partner Benjamin Brewer welcomed a bouncing baby boy on February 11th. And then proceeded to name him…Ickitt.

MIAPREG.jpg

Ickitt Brewer. I suppose it’s better than Bronx Mowgli. And as Shitals, Anoops, Chitranis, Vishalis, Gurpreets and so many more, we are not in a position to judge. Are we?

CUE debate over traditional inherited jaw-breakers v. attention-getting “creative” monstrosities.

So which is lickle Ickitt? I’m Sri Lankan, and I have to say I’ve never heard of it. But, to be fair, on my last visit in 2006, newspaper editorials were bemoaning the fact that new parents were ignoring traditional names in favor of made-up mash-ups. Yeah, there are Sri Lankan equivalents to Pilot Inspektor and Audio Science. (Ok, not really. I just wanted to throw those out there. The Sri Lankan parents were stringing together nonsensical syllables that sounded pretty, not naming kids after curriculum subjects from a technical college.)

I leave it to you, dear readers. Ickitt – have you heard of it? Does it harken to the desh?

Ah, screwitt, I guess it does have a certain ring to it.

UPDATE: It’s a hoax, I was had…now I’m off to tell the blog that broke this where to stickitt.

45 thoughts on “How Many No Money Boyz are Named…”

  2. And then proceeded to name him…Ickitt.

    I assume they plan to home school him.

  5. “I suppose it’s better than Bronx Mowgli.”

    Mowgli is more desi than Ickitt, I’d say. I think she should have gone for something more musical, like “Oodoodanoo”. Or maybe “Milwaukee”.

  6. perhaps she forgot to add “cr” at the beginning of the lad’s name.

    but srsly, Ickitt is an incredibly unfortunate name.

  7. Although I’m Sri Lankan as well, and have a very unusual name (although still desi sounding)… Ickitt is definetely out there. I don’t know why my mind wonders to how they would have come up with this name..

    ie. 1. Pig latin for tickit without the ay 2. Maybe its from a License Plate -> I SEEK IT.= ICKITT

    So much for names like Bensingham or Miabalan 😛

    Out of time to give this anymore thought :).

  8. I guess that Lemony Snickitt will need to pick an exotic professional name such as Selvadurai or Arulananthan when he has his short-lived spin off music career in 20 days.

  9. 5 · Oodoodanoo said

    “I suppose it’s better than Bronx Mowgli.” Mowgli is more desi than Ickitt, I’d say. I think she should have gone for something more musical, like “Oodoodanoo”. Or maybe “Milwaukee”.

    Mowgli is not a desi name at all. Kipling made it up. We associate it with India because of the ubiquity of The Jungle Book. I don’t like Ickitt just because it is too harsh sounding. Too many hard consonants.

  11. Haha, I love it! I would expect nothing less from M.I.A. I haven’t a clue how her mind works but I love the stuff she comes up with.

  13. 10 · portmanteau said

    ickett, as they say, is not quite cricket.

    But is it stickier than a wicket?

    I’ll be here all night, folks!!

  15. Sampar-urula Arulpragasam Brewer would be much tastier than the ickier Ickitt Brewer

  16. 15 · LandBeyond7Zs said

    Sampar-urula Arulpragasam Brewer

    They should have gone with a first name of Milwaukee.

  17. Sometimes you have to feel sorry for the poor kids of these high flying superstars (can we call MIA that yet?)

    Poor thing doesn’t have a last name!

    (Not that the first name is something he can boast of!)

  19. Ickitt While not well pick-ed Is less ugly Than Bronx Mowgli.

    E Clerihew Bentley might approve.

  20. I know of an ABD guy named Ikshvaku whose name was reduced to “Ick”. “Ickitt” as a name does lick it.

  21. poor kid. kids are going to tease him. i mean it’s so easy! Stickitt. Kickitt

  22. MIA and her handsome hubby must have been intoxicated by the extreme cuteness of their newborn when they chose the name. (I know because I was also crazed by the adorable looks of my newborn daughter 10 years ago.)

    His name sounds like a modified truncated version of an English name like Samuel Beckett to me.

  23. will no lankan stand firmly at the back of the crease, pull off the front foot and name their child, “sonnaboy” or perhaps, “what, la?” Y’know, the things that mums ACTUALLY use in reference to their children.

  24. I should have said MIA’s fiance, not hubby. Sorry about that.

  27. I would not know how to judge this name because every Sri Lankan that i have come across had strange name. Two Sri Lankan boys i know have very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita, and another Sri Lankan boy has the name “Lanka”. But i would have to say Ickitt wins the award to be the strangest of them all. maybe it would help to put a desi accent on it?

  28. very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita,

    The ending vowel is schwa and Hindu Sri Lankas (as well as many South Indian desis) have names like Arjuna, Ananda etc…

  29. 27 · fallen jhumki said

    I would not know how to judge this name because every Sri Lankan that i have come across had strange name. Two Sri Lankan boys i know have very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita, and another Sri Lankan boy has the name “Lanka”.

    Ok, need to address this: Sri Lankan boys don’t have girly names. The “a” ending is pronounced “uh”, so those name are An-ju-luh and Roo-see-tuh. Syllables are stressed evenly, Rs are rolled, and consonants are soft.

    The problem is that most Sri Lankan words and names (Sinhala especially) are transcribed really strangely into English. I don’t know how this began, where these transcription conventions originated. For example, many Sinhala words are spelled with a ‘w’ in English (places like Polonnaruwa, Hikkaduwa; last names like Wickramatunga) but the letter W doesn’t exist in Sinhala. It’s a soft V. Makes it very confusing. Tamil fares better, in this regard, I think…but the words are so long when spelled out in English, it’s another can of worms.

  31. I love how they said this in the MTV article –

    New York’s Daily News contacted several South Asian writers and scholars for illumination on the significance of the name “Ickitt,” to little avail. K.T. Rajasingham, editor of the online publication the Asian Tribune, told the paper it is not a Tamil name. A New York member of the South Asian Journalists Association said that in classical Tamil, the word “Ickattu” means “tough” or “inextricable,” but he had no translation for “Ickitt.”
  32. K.T. Rajasingham, editor of the online publication the Asian Tribune, told the paper it is not a Tamil name. A New York member of the South Asian Journalists Association said that in classical Tamil, the word “Ickattu” means “tough” or “inextricable,” but he had no translation for “Ickitt.”

    muahahaha. in my salade days ve would entertain dumbfuc queries on Indian food and customs. no more. salt, pepper and vinegar are a great stfupper.

  33. 28 · my_dog_jagat said

    very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita,
    The ending vowel is schwa and Hindu Sri Lankas (as well as many South Indian desis) have names like Arjuna, Ananda etc…

    Actually Tamils in Sri Lanka (who form the bulk of Hindu Sri Lankans) hardly use name like Arjuna or Ananda whilst amongst the Sinhalese, who are mostly Buddhist, names like Arjuna, Ananda, Janaka are very common.

  35. 27 · fallen jhumki said

    I would not know how to judge this name because every Sri Lankan that i have come across had strange name. Two Sri Lankan boys i know have very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita, and another Sri Lankan boy has the name “Lanka”. But i would have to say Ickitt wins the award to be the strangest of them all. maybe it would help to put a desi accent on it?

    They are not ‘girly names’. The ‘a’ on the end of those names is pronounced as ‘er’ in baker, singer, runner in a British accent (without the r at the end pronounced). So it nis Anjuler and Rusiter. They are ‘girly names’ if the ‘a’ at the end is elongated like Anjulaa and Rusitaa. Just like cicatrix said these differences are not apparent when transliterated into English. Another common name in Sri Lanka is Tushara. When it is pronounced Tusharer it is a boy’s name and when it is is Tusharaa it’s a girls name. Manjuler is a boys name whilst Manjulaa is a girl’s name but they are both written in English as Manjula.

    Hindi and several other North Indian languagese have lost the inherent vowel that is part of Sanskrit. So it is Arjun, Tushar, Janak, Chandan etc, whilst Sinhalese retains the Sanskrit inherent vowel and it is Arjuna, Tushara, Janaka, Chandana.

  36. 18 · Ickettalingam ????

    Icketta..lingam

    You must wash it once in a while….. LOL

  37. “Tamil fares better, in this regard, I think…but the words are so long when spelled out in English, it’s another can of worms.”

    Yes, I dare say no Tamil cherishes lugging things like “Waalooppillai” around.

  39. : It’s a hoax, I was had

    Awww I was having so much fun with Ickettalingam. It would have made a nice addition to the kuppuswamy (garbage swamy) line of southern names.

  40. 39 · my_dog_jagat said

    Awww I was having so much fun with Ickettalingam

    LambuLingam, MahaLingam, Yoni( good Hebrew name as well, YYY connection ?), Keezh Vanam TamizhKudiMagan, VadiVel are good classic names. I dig Tamizh, Hindi does not feel the same for me(no offences, I read both languages but a Malayali).

  42. OT, but what an awful looking dress that is, at least to my untrained eyes!

  44. 43 · TTCUSM said

    Any German-speaking desis out there?(I’m referring to comments 40 & 43).

    Weekend service slowdown, sorry! Those comments were spam and have now been deleted.

  45. So, the rumor about Ickitt wasn’t really false, at least according to this story. The kid’s inheriting a $5.3B fortune to fund his therapy sessions about being called Ikhyd. Unless this story is false too, of course.