Name-dropping, the NRG way to doing what westerners do in the west

ahmedabad: hetal thakkar, a software professional in florida, has named her daughter vanesha (queen of the forest). the child will probably be called vanessa when she grows up. a smart move by parents, in view of the fact that many a non-resident gujarati (nrg) has seen his/her name twisted and distorted by tongue-tied westerners, one would say. the significance of names is increasing for gujaratis living abroad.they would of course not like a bhogilal to become 'bhogie' or a tribhuvan to become 'tito' or, for that matter, a bharat to become 'brat'. what's in a name, one may ask. a lot, for those who take pride in their identity and would like to be known by the same for the rest of their life. but it often does not turn out that way for many indians who seek greener pastures abroad. ask any nrg and he'll tell you how important it is to name children right. "contrary to shakespeare's famous saying (what's in a name?), there's a lot in a name," says meenal pandya, a boston-based author of 'pick a pretty indian name for your baby'. it stays with you forever and becomes an integral part of your identity. "when it is distorted or changed it hurts," she adds. for indians living abroad, the task of retaining their names often becomes difficult. "indian names are mostly mispronounced abroad," says priyabala shah, author of many books, including 'tilak - traditional wear of indian women'. her surname was spelt 'schah' and pronounced 'sha' in paris, where she got her doctorate in literature. "and it was quite annoying because 'sha' (chat) means a cat in french," she says. vikram shah, a dairy technologist in sweden, did not change his name to vicki as many a vikram staying abroad has had to do. he learnt a technique to spell his name in other european languages and write it in the language of the foreigner who could not pronounce it. but many others are not as determined. "dharmendra became david in the ford company's employee list," says bihari patel, father of dharmendra who lives in detroit. "and he had to accept it. because his colleagues could not say dharmendra." similarly, tribuvan patel from vadodara has become tito, babubhai patel has become bob, pradip kothari is peter and dhansukh patel is dan. "getting used to this forced change in name is tough," says newly wed jigna bhogilal who learnt that her husband chaitanya bhogilal is known as bhogie in houston. "in the begining when i used to get telephone calls from people looking for my husband, i used to tell them that no one by this name stays here," she recalls. however, bhogie has acclimatised to his new name, and his business card introduces him as bhogie. when he picks up the phone, he says "bhogie here." agreeing with bhogie, krishnakant vakharia, president of the vishwa gujarati samaj says, "though it might be tough and might appear ridiculous to others, one has to accept this change. it is an inescapable part of naturalisation in an alien society." but harassed by the name-change phenomenon, many nrg parents prefer to play safe in naming their kids. "naming a child cleverly is quite helpful," says vikram shah from sweden. it keeps the kids away from naturalisation conflicts like being teased with a distorted name in schools when anant turns into 'ant' or parthivi into 'party'. shah has chosen typically indo-european names like emma (hema), enil (sunil) and arvin (arvind) for his three kids.