One of the first things a person learns about themselves is their name. It becomes ingrained in our perception of our individuality and is an important component of our identity in the world we are born in. Naming a child is taken quite seriously by some parents. Even before the birth of their child, parents and families will spend a long time deciding on a name that holds some significance to them.
Names are not simply useful labels that identify us and help people address each other; they also carry cultural, familial, and personal significance. Indistinguishably linked to our cultural origin and background, names can represent an individual's community, traditions, language, and history. They also convey information about family history and lineage. They may be passed down through families, linking people to their ancestors. At different times children are named according to recent trends in baby names, which may be popularised by contemporary TV dramas and celebrities. However, in the quest for unique baby names, sometimes people adopt names from different cultures.
In the 1970s and 1980s, when the drama serials aired on Pakistan Television (PTV) were on the rise in popularity, many families chose names of the characters from these serials. “I named both of my daughters Zara and Sania after the beloved characters of a famous PTV drama,” shared Mehar-un-Nisa, who was a regular drama and movie lover.
“There was a craze for watching Pakistani dramas in those times. People even used to wear hairstyles that were similar to the actors in these TV shows as well,” she added. During those times, there was a surge of names such as Shirin, Sara, Marina, Farhad, Esfandyar, Yazdan, Farzad, to name a few. “All such names were inspired by Persian, Iranian, and Turkish influence in society,” Mehar-un-Nisa said, adding how she had at least three Saras, one Marina, and one Farzad in her circle of friends in college.
Two of Mehar-un-Nisa’s cousins, who were sisters, both chose names for their children that rhymed with each other’s. “They wanted their children to connect and have the same bond as the sisters had. So they thought if they had rhyming names, they will be also close to each other,” she said. “Qamar’s eldest daughter was Samreen, so Rubeena named her daughter Zareen. Her second child was Nuzhat and her sister’s daughter was named Nighat. Her youngest child was Beenish but Rubeena had a son so she named him Danish.”
When Turkish dramas hit the Pakistani market, people named their children after characters in those dramas such as Ertugrul. “A friend of mine named her daughter after a Turkish drama character but the difficulty was evident when they had to teach everyone how to pronounce the name and explain what it meant,” told Murtuza Ishaq. He opted to name his own children something easy. He gave his children rhyming names so that it's easy to remember. “It is funny that I never gave a thought when naming my children but just named them whatever rhymes,” he said. “My elder sister named my firstborn Sidra so then I started naming all the girls with names ending with ‘ra’ such as Iqra, Hira, and Nudra. My wife named our boys Mujtaba and Mustafa,” Ishaq shared, rhyming their sons’ names with his. However, the parents never really thought of the meanings or the impact that a name can create, only that it sounded familiar.
Names have religious or spiritual importance in many cultures. They may be chosen by religious and cultural scriptures, beliefs, or practices. “In my family, we only chose the names of prophets and religious women for our children,” shared Abu Bakar. “All my siblings too named their children Ibrahim, Ismail, Moosa, Jibraeel, Mikaeel, Maryam, Asiya, Khadija, Fatima, and so on. The reason was just to make them connected to Islam and because we believe that names have impact on personality,” he explained.
Being named after a religious figure can also help encourage more curiosity about the role of the namesake in Islam. “For example, I have named my son Ibrahim so we keep him encouraging him to read more about the significance of Ibrahim in the religion because one owns their name and they feel more connected to it,” said Abu Bakar. According to him, Ibrahim, who is 15 years old now, started taking interest in stories about the prophet when he was just five. Abu Bakar added that his son doesn’t show as much interest in any other prophet.
The potential impact of a distinctive name on the life of a child varies. While having a unique name can be a source of pride and originality, it can also provide obstacles such as pronunciation issues, mocking, or the need to constantly explain the origin of the name. When naming a child, it is often necessary to strike a balance between distinctiveness and pragmatism. “I always had in mind to name my child something I have never heard before. I named my son ShahNoor after a studio in Lahore, and till today I have never heard someone of the same name,” told Muhammad Saleem, who searched for different names for his children because he desired to be distinct from other family members.
“The idea was not just to name them something that has an impact on their personality but just to give them unusual names or at least names I have not heard. For a very long time, I did not come across anyone with the same name as my firstborn and second child,” he added.
Ali Tahir Mughees thinks that every person is unique anyway because everyone has a unique fingerprint, retina scan, etc, so what is the compulsion to find rare names? “I never liked being compared to anyone, be it looks, style or any other way,” he said. “But I never understand why brown people are even in this competition to give their children some unique name when they try to be like others all the time. What people learn and do in their lives is a copied version of their relatives, friends and even their neighbours [in order to keep up with the joneses]. Giving your children different names has become a fashion statement,” said the 34-year-old father of a two-year-old daughter and a son two months old.
Awaiting his daughter’s birth, he shortlisted some names suggested by his wife, sisters, mother. “I always liked bigger and older names,” he said. So his selection had names like Benazir, Jahan Ara, Gul-e-Bahisht, Sakina, Farkhanda, Mahjabeen. However, his mother finally selected the name Marjaan for her granddaughter. She regularly recites Surah-e-Rehman and marjaan is mentioned in a verse from the surah. The word means coral pearls and rocks. Marjaan is a common name in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but mostly for men but in big cities such names aren’t that commonly used.
Mughees shared that some of his religious friends criticised him for naming his daughter Marjaan as it means a hard rock. “One guy said that it is a hard name [because of its meaning] and that it won’t suit her. Incidentally, his name was Zulfiqar, so I said to him that you are named after a sword, does that impact you?” he replied that he named his son Rostam.
Mughees explained that he just likes names that are recognisable yet not too common. He did not look too deeply into the matter. “The moment my son was born, I saw him and named him Rostam. It is an Arabic-Persian name which comes from a mythological Persian character and is pronounced as Rostam and not Rustam,” he shared.
In the race of coming up with rare and obscure names, the children with unheard of names may suffer later. If their names are difficult to pronounce or spell, for example, they will likely be teased at school and made the butt of jokes because of their odd name. “Parents never realise how much class fellows, or even seniors, bully you [in school] if you have names connected to incidents. We even have examples where people have named their children after anti-terrorism operations such as Azab Khan and Fasad Khan,” the psychologist explained.
People give their children names of characters they like either a movie or drama character or a religious personality as it somehow satisfies their desire to be known, to be famous and successful. “If you see people naming their children after drama or movie characters then somewhere inside their minds, they want the child to turn out to be like the character or the celebrity,” said clinical psychologist Syeda Masooma Zehra, “which is a way to fulfill their desire to be someone that they can’t be.”
According to her, the majority of parents never name their children after villains or evil characters because they want their children to grow into heroes, high achievers, or better humans and that is where fantasy kicks in. “We want our children to end up like the characters or to be successful like the celebrity [we idolise] while we never work on providing them the right opportunities or the groundwork to build themselves,” Zehra said.