came across an article on names. A nice read.


Guest Article: Names and synonyms
Padma ThuravilRC&MDecember 28

Last week, my almost three year old daughter didn’t respond to either pet name or her own name. Instead came the pleading request: “Please… not that. Call me Anya?”

I’m stunned into silence. What?The oh-so-innocent look on her face deepens and she reiterates gleefully: “Please call me Anya no?”There… my daughter has renamed herself and insists on us calling her by the new name. I could cry when I think of all the effort, the emotions, not to mention the dozens of baby name books in which we invested… all in vain.

That brings me to the new era of naming er… branding er… whatever…My first tryst with the new era of naming came with an agency called Crayons. Then things that were things started becoming names. The relief was that at least Crayons, as the name suggested, was into doing something with colours, never mind if it was an advertising agency. At least, it sounded good, I thought as I went back to my mundane life at this rocking ad agency.How names have changed since then! Now we have Spinach and Lemon and Tomato and Orange and the latest I saw was Vitamins!!! (A fashion clothing store for girls.)Why can’t people let vegetables and fruits be?

This naming thing has taken an exciting turn… For generations, businesses were always known by their name, or so I thought. The Batliwalas, Daruwalas, Kabadiwalas – take a bow. Then came the traders whose businesses were known by who was running it – Khurana & Sons, Ramnik Lal & Bros, and so on. Then came the trend where just like the joint family became a nuclear family and then just singles, along came names like Preeti Vyas Gianetti, Pritish Nandy Communications – the trend of individuals becoming names becoming brands.

Anybody not from the industry would get confused. Though this was quite the done thing in the US, in India, it was something new and that made us sit up and take notice till we got used to it… and we moved on…But now we have moved on to something more interesting and the movement doesn’t seem to stop here.Now good old spinach is no longer the measly ‘palak’ used to make ‘palak paneer’, it’s a retail supermarket that promises you the elusive, ever fresh vegetables and fruits. Lemon is a creative hot shop. Tomato, which my colleague always assumed was an eatery, is a trendy shopping zone.

What puzzles me is what were the owners thinking of when they thought up these names, unless, of course, they were trying to be desperately different and ran out of options.But I do know what the pubs and the latest in trendy joints were thinking of when they decided to call themselves Amnesia or Velocity or Red Light.Like they say, some names are names and some names are controversy, like the restaurant with the swastika symbol called Hitler’s Cross in the lanes of Kharghar… Poor guy – so much for inspiration.Names need to at least connote what the business is all about, but if the name is the business, or the business is the name, which would come first?

Personally, I feel very comfortable with names that tell me what to expect – Only Parathas or Dosa Diner. But then again, at a ‘dosa’ diner, I know they also offer ‘idlis’ and ‘vadas’ and ‘uthappams’. Maybe the rationale is that the batter is more or less the same. Would it not have been better then to have called it Batter Diner?Gosh! Never knew names were so difficult to rationalise and think up. Anyway, who’s thinking?

Post script: By the way, after my daughter renamed herself, I have decided not to hunt for a name for my second child. After all, what is the point?