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Mayuri and Her Art of Naming

by Vaman Acharya
(Bengaluru, Karntaka, India)

It was a ticklish problem for Mayuri, a little girl of eight years, when her mom asked,

"Raghunath's wife had delivered twins. The first born was a girl and the second born was a son. His three elder brothers had two children each, one daughter and one son. All these children of brothers put together including the new borns, would be eight children. They were facing immediate problem of naming the newborn twins. All the brothers asked their children to stand in one line according to their age. Accordingly, the children presented themselves in one line. Parents asked their names and jotted down on a paper on the basis of age. The names of the children were Anandi-Anand, Anchita- Anarghya, Avani- Avinash. You have to tell me within five minutes the names chosen by Raghunath for his twins in consultation with his brothers."

For a moment, Mayuri was in a dilemma whether to accept the problem posed by her mom or not! It took some time for her to understand the problem. She accepted it as a challenge and agreed to answer within the given time and told her mom to wait for few minutes and then start the time.

Mayuri had developed a wonderful hobby of collecting names of children and their meanings. Model Higher Primary School, Pavanpur, where she was studying, had a practice of calling names of students for the purpose of the attendance. Mayuri thought that calling by name was an identification of students. She did not stop at that point. She took out all the 50 names of students from her 3rd standard and tried to find the meaning of each name. Mayuri went to the students individually and asked the meaning of their names. Instead of giving the meaning, they advised her to stop doing such useless exercise and concentrate on studies. Some students even laughed at her for wasting her time instead of concentrating on studies. But Mayuri was determined and did not care to their advice and continued her efforts of collecting names. Ultimately she bought a book on names and their meanings. She noted them down alphabetically in her journal.

Her father remembered his daughter's unusual hobby.

"Mayuri, if you have developed a hobby of collecting names and their meanings, fine it would be easy for you to find the solution of the problem just now your mom has asked. You have to solve yourself without taking the help of anybody. Your time starts now. After you select the names, you have to explain why you have selected them," asked her dad.

She took out the paper containing the names of the six children of three brothers and her journal. After three minutes of thinking, she had a smile on her face.

She replied, "Raghunath had selected Aarati and Aakash. While choosing the names, I have observed two peculiarities in the six names. One is all the names are matching. Second is first two alphabets are similar."

"Yes! Raghunath had selected Aarati and Aakash. Can you explain the reason behind choosing these names?" asked her dad.

"Before choosing the name I had analyzed earlier six names. Anandi means happy. The meaning of Anand is also the same. Anchita means honoured or worshipped. Anarghya means priceless. Avani means earth. Avinash means indestructible. For new born twins the most suitable names would be Aarati and Aakash, which means Aarati is a form of worship and Aakash is sky. All the conditions laid down in the problem looked into carefully. All the eight names are good to become home a sweet home."

Her mom congratulated her for using the brain to find out the solution.

The little girl was not ready to keep quiet at that point.

"How is that you have named me as Mayuri? I hope you too might have kept something in mind while selecting my name," she asked.

Her dad smiled. "Yes! My name is Manoj and your mummy's name is Manorama."

"You are born of the mind and mom is beautiful and both of you fulfill the meaning."

"What about your name?" asked her dad.

"Mayuri means peahen or peafowl. Male peafowl is peacock. It is the national bird of India. Female peafowl is peahen. But why did you name me as 'Mayuri'?"

"Mayuri, you are pretty and handsome like a peahen." Her mother had a naughty smile as she replied.

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Jul 22, 2012
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Naming of New Born
by: Vaman Acharya

I think, most of the people like to name their children not exceeding four or five words ignoring the meaning getting inspiration from the movies. For example, tuvvi, bolu etc., Here in the story, I have tried to impress on those, who wish to name their children to keep in mind the meaning of the name.

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