What’s in a Name?

Do you remember that line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? "What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." That's another way of saying that names are arbitrary tags that we assign and have no effect on reality itself. It's a nice sentiment yet reality is different. We don't know for sure if Akhteruzzaman Elias would still have written Khoabnama if he had a different name; what we know is that names have an effect in our everyday life; whether we like it or not.

Some people have had some fun experiences with their name, while some had to go through a journey for theirs.

Take Shrestha Haldar for example. With a nickname as catchy as 'Cute', she's had been through plenty of conversations involving her name.

"I don't use that name for formal meetings but in any informal meet up, I introduce myself as Cute. Sometimes my friends try to give me a hard time by telling others that I gave myself the name to call myself cute but that's not the case. My mother gave me the name. That's not the end. People have a difficult time with my formal name as well. It's Shrestha Halder but people keep mistaking it for Howlader quite often," she said.

Not everyone is fortunate like Shrestha to have a catchy name. And sometimes even though you have a catchy name, it becomes the cause of suffering for other reasons.

Tasnim Rahman (name has been changed), a student of Dhaka University had to suffer for her nickname.

"Everyone at my home calls me Promi. I used to introduce myself as Promi but after I got into university, we've had a CR (class representative) of the same name. She was not very friendly and everyone in our class had to tolerate her for years. After the first semester, I stopped introducing myself as Promi because I didn't want to share a name with her. My friends used to make fun of it all the time. Four years later and I am still not thrilled about that name" she said regretfully.

Yasin Arafat, a new father and teacher had a different problem. He wanted to name his first child within family tradition and almost settled with the same name as his father. But he was stopped by his wife based on some interesting reasons.

"I was ready to name my son after my father but my wife was not thrilled about the idea. We discussed the issue and it turns out she felt awkward with the name. Apparently, she wouldn't be comfortable yelling the same name as my father's if she had to be strict with the child. And I realised she had a point. I'd feel the same way. So, we didn't adopt the whole name, just the first letter," said Yasin Arafat.

Unorthodox names often end up having a story of their own. Mehedi Hasan Don found it the hard way.

"The first part of my name is quite common. The last part- not so much. Apparently, I was a very mischievous kid and my uncle decided to name me Don because of that. The name was catchy in a village setting and it caught on; so much so that my parents ended up having it in all my documents. People find it amusing and sometimes hard to believe but Don really is my name. My boss felt awkward calling me by that name at the office so they call me Mehedi over there. But I am still Don among my friends," said Mehedi Hasan.

Sometimes there are just too many names to handle. Niloy Hasan has four names and he responds to all of them. One can imagine how confusing it must be for him.

"Nijhum. Niloy. Uthso. Miraj - all of them are my names and different people call me by different one depending on which side of my family they are from. When I was born, both my father's side of the family and mother's side of the family wanted to be the one to name me. As you can imagine, it was quite the family politics. I ended up having both names. And a nickname. And then my father added another name himself- and now I have four. It's a bit funny but exhausting as well. But now I am stuck with all of them," said Niloy Hasan.

On the other hand, some people are just having trouble with a singular name. Nashrat Ahmed, a recent graduate has her name mispronounced all the time.

"People think it's Nusrat and they always say that because it's a common name. But I am not Nusrat, I am Nashrat," she added with a sigh.

Names are important and they will continue to have an effect on our lives. Will the future be different and names will be replaced with numbers? We certainly hope not cause then we'd be deprived of these colourful stories.