What's in a name?
Affable
in so and so college?/ Your name Aruna sounds familiar.Do you know me ?
etc. Good luck to those guys in finding those female arunas.
Another one :"Hi Aruna! I liked your article". I don't mind
being called Aruna. [In fact I prefer that. To avoid confusion, I sign
as Venkat.] But I *do* mind if the comment is reserved for a female aruna.
The one which irritated me is this: "Hi there! I'd like to know
whether ind...@jetson.uh.edu has a NeXT account". [Hey, Naveen
Pinglay, somebody from Waterloo Univ. wants to know whether you
have a NeXT account or not. No offence meant to that Waterloo Univ.
guy.] Certainly I don't mind in helping out people for genuine requests,
leave alone the gender confusion. Yes, it's fun to send mails to females
and receive fe-mails. But isn't this mail too much? Do you think our
dear desi females are that much dumb to oblige to your request?
I could've easily changed my name but during a discussion with my
dad, he told me :"Parents enjoy naming the kids with the names they want
and it's the one of the privilege he has and he didn't have to ask anybody
to name his kids. If you want to change name, go ahead and do it.". Giving
respect to his privilege, I didn't change my name.
Included in this posting are repost of one of my earlier postings and a
nice follow-up by one Mr.Ajay Diwakaran, for the benefit of newcomers.
Old-timers can hit 'n' now.
Cheers,
Venkat
------------------ Repost-------------------------------------------
This posting is dedicated to those people whose names don't match
their gender.
The following article is swiped from Reader's Digest March '93
issue.Even though it is a long one, I find very interesting and
subtly humorous. The things written in the [] are the comments/
experiences of mine.
-------------------Article starts here-----------------------------
What's in a name?
Condensed from "The Wall Street Journal" Dana Milbank
OH, TO BE JUST ANOTHER TOM, DICK OR HARRY. Even Bob or Fred would do.
Instead my parents decided 25 years ago to name the firstborn son Dana,
a name so feminine that one baby-name book defines it as a "sweet,
willowy, statuesque dancer.". [ I was named Aruna Venkatachalam and
I think the name Aruna stands for "the sun at dawn".]
Ever since, life has been a series of indignities. In grade school, when
small boys try to be tough guys, I shrank in my seat as yet another
substitute teacher, sensing a hoax, frowned during a roll call because a
boy answered to "Dana." [ In Annamalai Univ and in Univ. of Roorkee,
lots of times, this happened to me. Some Profs used to (roll)call
Miss.Aruna Venkatachalam and wait for a reply from the girls side.]
In summer camp, the laundry sent my name tagged clothes to the girls'
bunks. Today, my fiancee complains that people think she is seeing another
woman.
Such abuse is no doubt foreign to those fortunate people whose names
match their gender. But consider the plight of the stubbly-faced Evelyn,
Courtney,Stacy,Tracy,Robin,Kim, Dale, Randy and Jody.
"Picture this," says former pittsburgh steelers star Lynn Swann. " You
graduate from a college as an All-American, and your football team wins the
national championship. How is the first letter from alumni association
addressed? ` Ms.Lynn Swann.'" [ I got a Columbia House pre-approved
membership card bearing the name Ms.Aruna Venkatachalam. They don't know
they lost a potential customer because of their goof.]
Shirley Povich, a Washington Post sports columnist, was listed in Who's
who of American Women. His biography there was lifted directly from who's
who in America. "It plainly indicates that I'm a husband and father of
three," Povich says.
When Beverly Carter, a retired newspaper executive, checks into a hotel,
the clark hands his credit card back to his wife. Eastman Kodak's chairman,
Kay R. Whitmore, was turned into a "chairwoman" in a Wall Street Journal
article.
And what about those Glenns, Darryls, and Danas who need bras, not neckties?
When Dana Frost turned 18, she started receiving draft-registration material
in the mail, which she ignored until she was threatened with five years in
prison. [ The top of the cream in my case is this: I got a mail sometime
ago addressed to me as Ms.Aruna Venkatcahalam and the mail offer is
panty-hoses(!!!) at sale prices if I buy thru' mail order. Really I
couldn't control my laughter. What I wonder is how these Americans
know the name Aruna is a feminine one? ]
The Selective Service admits it has sent notices in the past decade to over
139,690 men who turned out to be women. "The system tries to be as friendly as
possible," says spokesman Lew Brodsky. "But if there's any doubt, the letter
goes." [ I envy those folks here with ambiguous names because there
are so many people to share their views. In India, there are very few
guys with a typical girl's name. In the net, I noticed Satya Prabhakar
is the other one with the ambiguous name.]
The trials are endless for the ambiguous. Free-lance writer Michaele
(pronounced Michael") Weissman was called Mike as a child. "It was horrible,"
she recalls. "It felt so unfeminine." She says her father, a college athlete,
had wanted a boy. She thought up elaborate lies to explain her name, claiming,
for instance, that the Puritan author Michael Wigglesworth, a man, was an
ancestor.
I tried to ignore my name in school and write "D.Timothy," on homework
assignments, but it look terribly stuffy, and I didn't care much for the
Timothy part, either. My mother calls me " Dane," a pet name in both senses
of the word. I associate it with the dog.
" Parents say only sticks and stones can break your bones, but of course
names do harm you," says Bruce Lansky, co-author of the "The Baby Name
Personality Survey". "If you give a child a name with gender confusion,
you're giving a child needless problems."
Albert Mehrabian, a UCLA psychology professor and author of "The Name Game",
has conducted studies which show that ambiguous names are not desirable in
terms of the impressions they make on others. Perhaps that's why the
narrator of the song Johnny Cash sings, "A Boy Named Sue," vows to "kill
that man that give me that awful name."
Says Mehrabian" "Parents give a boy a feminine name to make appear warm and
loving, or give a girl a masculine name to make her more competitive
professionally." But it often backfires. " These names give negative
impressions in terms of success and morality," he says. [ Success,
I don't know yet. But I never felt demoralized because of the ambiguous
name. As a matter of fact, I felt the name was an advantage to me.
Popularly popular/unpopularly popular/ popularly unpopular I was
referred as " Oh! that guy with a typical girl's name." In any case,
lots of people know me personally and others at least know my name. ]
What's more, those of us with iffy names aren't always taken seriously.
Douglas Newsom, a journalism professor, tried to board and airplane recently
and was asked to show photo identification. After complying, she complained
and the agent suggested she change her name.
Of course, some people with ambiguous names actually do that. Former
President Gerald R. Ford might not have made to the Oval Office with his
given name, Leslie King, Jr. And how many starring roles might John Wayne
have lost had he not sloughed the name Marion Morrison?
Since I haven't changed my name, though, I have to argue with the
video-store clerk who accuses me of using some woman's card when I try to
rent a movie.
Occasionally, I can't just laugh it off. Once, when I applied for a summer
job, I got a rejection letter addressed " Dear Ms.Milbank." I wrote an angry
reply. Had I made so little an impression on the woman who had given me the
face-to-face interview? She apologized, blaming the mistake on her secretary.
I still didn't get the job. [ When I got a job in Madras, other than those
who interviewed me, every employee was eagerly waiting for a girl to
appear. Needless to say, how their faces became dull when they saw me.]
----------------------Article ends here---------------------------------
Cheers,
V Aruna ;-)
--------------------End of my posting---------------------------------------
------------------Ajay's follow-up starts here -----------------------------
Hi Aruna,
Since misery loves company, is it any consolation that
the Sitaram(an)s, Janakiram(an)s, and Radhakrishna(n)s of this world are
invariably called Sita, Janaki and Radha! Another source of confusion
is the North-South differences in convention. So Saroj is a feminine
name in the Hindi belt, but a man's name in Bengal. You have
Lt. Col. Bhawani Singh the war hero, while in the South Bhawani
is an exclusively feminine name. Bhanu is a usually a male name
in the North, while it is almost always a contraction of a female
name like Bhanumati/Bhanushree/.. in the South. Let us start a discussion
on whether the Sun is male or female, for that alone can decide who
is right, the North or the South!!!
My close friend Amitava suffers from the same problem as you
do i.e. junk mail addressed to Ms. Amitava. My theory is that since
Westerners often seem to use an "a" to end a feminine name, they assume
that it is a feminine name. It is not unreasonable since Muslim names also
follow
that pattern to some extent e.g. Hamid is male and Hamida is female. Hindu
names like Suneet and Suneeta or Amrit and Amrita follow the same pattern.
The most deadly example of this name-game is Badrakali
Mishra, a Nepalese politician who was/is male. Now that is an awe-inspiring
name irrespective of the gender it is attached to!!
Actually, some of the female sounding names of the North are actually
diminutives of longer male names e.g. Bhadrakali is probably short for
Bhadrakali Prasad. In fact, I thought your name was Arunachalam and that
you called yourself Aruna for the sake of brevity.
Finally the strange case of Rajni and Kiran and Madhu. Kiran More is
male
and Kiran Vairale is a stunning female. Rajni Kothari is a boring (only
kidding)
male prof from Delhi, and RAJNI used to be an Amazon upholder of truth, justice
and the Indian way on Sunday morning TV. Madhu Kishwar is a prominent Indian
feminist, and Madhu Dandawate is a male politician. Must be damn confusing
if both Madhus are in the same place at the same time. One of the confounding
PC quandaries of our times!!
Regards,
ajay
Raghavan Jayaraman
wife [assuming that U are married]. Destroy those letters before Nov.:-).
I have received quite a # of mails about pregnancy / pre-natal care. One
best letter I received was from the scholarship department at Northwestern,
which goes like this..
"Dear Jayaraman
We are pleased to inform you that you son Vivek has been awarded
Ford Endowment scholarship for the year 1991. ........
We need the birth-certificate of your daughter Anna and the date of birth
of your wife Katherine. ....
-sd- "
I made my folks miss a beat by sharing a copy of this with them.
I am still looking forward to meet my wife and kids:-) Does anybody
have any idea?:-)
raghavan
Balaji Kannan
[....]
>I made my folks miss a beat by sharing a copy of this with them.
Kadi, you like understating, don't you ?
> I am still looking forward to meet my wife and kids:-) Does anybody
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I am sure Deepa [got that right no ?] would like to dispute atleast
the first part with a "You liar! Where were you when you were
around ? " :)
>have any idea?:-)
No. I only have clues :)
>raghavan
cheers,
bk