Vinayak

Vinayak and Me: Hindutva and the Politics of Naming was so interesting to me, it made me think about naming as a whole. Throughout the paper, Vinayak described the process and the importance of naming, of how it was a “common practice in India for families to wait several years before giving formal names to children.” I think about this line and it makes me think of my name, and the names of Americans in comparison to the names of people living in India and other cultures. For some reason, names from other cultures, like Vinayak had a meaning behind it. As well as his last name, Chaturvedi, which he said could identify him as “an educated, middle-class, local, Hindi-speaking Brahmin.” This made me think about my own name: Scott Yoshimoto. I remember my dad joking saying Yoshimoto was the name of average middle class citizens who were farmers or something of that sort, and as for my mom’s maiden name, it referred to a prestigious samurai reference; which could be true but I am not sure. But this is similar to Vinayak’s last name Chaturvedi, which have associations with it and that people could identify you from your name. But as for my first name, I asked my parents what it really meant and why they gave me the name, the best response I could get from them was that my mom just really liked the name. There was no meaning behind it or specific reason I have the name. This made me think of the many other names associated with Americans, like Billy, Joe, Jason, John, Sarah, Christine (no offense to anybody who has these names); just what is the meaning behind our names? In other cultures it seems there is much meaning behind the name, or associated to some great God, but with our American culture, I’m not sure I can find quite the same meanings.