Naming the NRI progeny

Indian names are tough to pronounce correctly. Even by other Indians. Countless are the people to the north of the Vindhyas who bravely tried to make it through "Venkataramanan" or "Ananthapadmanabhan" or "Kodhandapani" but got lost in between. (Also, if the question "How do you say 'Parithi Ilamvazhuthi'?" is not already a part of the IIM or IAS interviews, it should definitely be.) And everyday in Tamilnadu, "Geet Sethi", "Hrithik Roshan" and "Vajpayee" are brutally dismembered in public sight.

So, it is needless to mention the extent Indian names are mauled abroad.

Considering the huge exodus of Indians (mainly to the US) in the last decade and their need to label their offspring, this knotty problem deserves to be examined in some seriousness. What kind of nomenclature can the proud NRI parent bestow on the child such that the name, when it comes out the American mouth, is recognisable? Or to ask the question differently, how does the American manage to tear to shreds this seemingly unmispronouncable name? Is there a method to his madness?

Given the nature of the English alphabet, it is impossible to guarantee that any particular name, however simple, will be perfectly pronounced. But reducing the possibility of mispronunciation will in itself be a laudable goal.

Stress

Purushothaman and Thripurasundari, San Jose, CA, are blessed with a beautiful daughter. They decide to name her Uma. Just three letters, what could go wrong? It's even the name of a Hollywood actress. Alas, the name gets mangled to Oo-muh. Subramanian, professor at a reputable Texas university, scarred by the experience of being addressed as "Submarine-man", decides to give his son a very short name - Siva. Unfortunately, it becomes See-vuh.

In English pronunciation, all words have at least one syllable that will be stressed. Catalysis. Technology. Algebra. So if the name has all short syllables, such as Ravi, Guru or Siva, it will surely be mispronounced, since some syllable will be elongated due to stress ("Raavi", "Gooru"). And with feminine names, if they end in A, you need some syllable other than the last to be long. This is because, in most English words, the last syllable is not elongated -- especially if it ends in A. (Contrary to the common misconception in our country, the stress in the word "India" is on the first syllable, not the last. Same with "China".) So names such as Uma, Sarika or Lathika will nearly always go wrong. But we can take advantage of this fact with Sanskrit masculine names -- Rama (rAma) will work well, but not the feminine Rama (ramA). Partha should be fine, too.

Even if the name does have a long syllable, the spelling must clearly indicate it. For English words, the native speakers have an idea of which syllable to stress. But for foreign names, they are not quite aware. For long I (I), use EE. For long U (U), use OO. Soorya rather than Surya. Praveen instead of Pravin. Sreenath instead of Srinath. (Since I spell my name "Srikanth", an American colleague pronounces it "srik-ANth".)

AB and AJ

If an NRI is addressed as AB, what is his name likely to be?

1. Atal Behari
2. Amitabh Bachchan
3. Aravamudhan Balakrishnan
4. None of the above

The right answer is, of course, 4. AB is how "Abhi" will be pronounced. And AJ is how "Ajay" will be.

As in "abiotic", "asymmetric" or "asymptotic", the A-prefix will be pronounced as E, not a (as we do in Indian languages). So Arun, Ashok, Amar, Akash, Aditya all suffer from this disadvantage.

Tom/Thomas

There are two main conventions in India for romanising the consonant "ta." In the south, it is "tha" with an H. In the north, there is no H. While the latter will be correctly pronounced by the Spanish or French, the former is handled better by the native English-speaker. Note the difference in pronunciation between tin and thin, tree and three. I feel that the southern convention will work better in English-speaking countries. Karthik, Shanthi, Samith, etc.

However, for the consonant "da", the southern convention (with H) works no better than the northern one. (Gandhi is always Gan-dee.) So, Adithya is better than Aditya, but Adhithya is not more useful.

English-like

Certain names that look like English names work really well. Smitha is one. ("Smith" with an A.) Laxman is a good choice too.

Beware

Remember how in the early days of Tendulkar's career, his name was pronounced by English/Australian commentators as "Sa-shin"? This was probably because the spelling is similar to the word "sachet", pronounced "sa-shey" because of its French origin. This is why Indian names of the pattern *chit, such as Archit or Sanchit, can go wrong. (Ar-shit, San-shit) If the surname is Dikshit, better get it changed to Deexit(h) or Dixit(h).