Back in 2011 the then Pope Benedict, while baptising some children, had advocated that they be given “Christian” names. He frowned upon naming children after celebrities. Recently the Syro-Malabar bishops of Kerala issued a similar edict. This has me flummoxed. What exactly is a “Christian” name? Also, what is in a name?

No doubt I will be reminded of the saying that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Is there any connection between a name and the person or thing named after it? Do names have any significance at all? And what qualifies as a Christian name? Going by the literal meaning of their names I must ask if Sridevi is a goddess, Kishore Kumar ever young, or Meena Kumari ever virgin?

If Benedict is considered a Christian name, then what of its Hindi translation – Aashirvad? Would Pope Benedict XVI, with his strongly Euro centric vision, have declined to baptise a child named Aashirvad? If during a Litany in Hindi would the Pope object to “Haathi Dant ka Garh,” the equivalent of “Tower of Ivory”, one of the paeans sung to Mother Mary?

Would they still want adivasis from remote villages of Jharkhand to be called Hilarius, Fulgentius or Polycarpus; as deemed appropriate by Belgian missionaries of yesteryear? How would Hilarius be in Hindi, a funny word called majak? What about ethnically Malayali names derived from Christian saints like Verghese (George), Kurian (Cyriac), Chinnamma (Ann) or Aleykutty (Elizabeth)?

Jyoti (Lucy) and Pushpa (Teresa of the Little Flower) are among the list of hundreds of Hindi names prepared by Padmavibhushan Jesuit Father Camille Bulcke. Many of these names have Sanskrit roots, and can be adapted to other Indian languages. Would the bishops find these names un-Christian because they are not European or anglicised?

Supposing a child was being named Michael, what guarantee that it was Michael the Archangel and not Michael Jackson? If it were Elizabeth, it could be after Queen Elizabeth, and not the cousin of Mary!

Is Mary a Christian name? Most biblical names have been heavily anglicised in India. The actual Hebrew word is Miriam, which means “beloved of God” – in Hindi Ishpriya. Jesus again is an anglicization. In Greek it is spelt Iesus, in the actual person’s native Aramaic it is Yesua, and in Hebrew Yehosua, which means Yahweh is salvation, or Yahweh helps . In Hindi it is spelt as Yesu or Yishu and in Urdu as Isa. Joseph is actually Yosep in Hebrew, a tribal name that means, “let him gather” .

Would a priest in Mumbai baptise a child as Dawood Ibrahim, named after an absconding terrorist, or after the heroes of the Old Testament – David and Abraham? Are Yusuf (Joseph), Moosa (Moses), Suleman (Solomon), Ayub (Job) or Yunus (Jonah) Muslim or Christian names? Who decides?

How have names evolved? In China there are so many Lis that it is a demographic problem. When I called out to my friend Jose at a crossing in Kochi the traffic stopped, because every second guy was called Jose! For Sikhs all names have to be based on an alphabet from the Guru Granth Sahib, again leading to a very small name base, so many sardars have nick names like Lucky or Honey!

When the British came to India they had a problem classifying people for municipal or other records, so they adopted the western model of Christian name, Middle name and Surname. Hindus used Kumar/ Kumari as their middle names, and their caste, like Gupta or Pande, as their surnames.

In Kerala the order is reversed – first the house name, then the father’s name and then one’s own name. P.T. Usha had a problem explaining this at the Olympics. Parsees chose their profession like Engineer, Doctor or Merchant, or their village like Barucha, Billimoria as their surnames.

Those who follow Arabic or Persian scripts, that are written from right to left, actually have their first name written last, by “normal” standards. Then again some Hindus have given “Christian” names like Tommy and Jimmy to their dogs! It is therefore more than apparent that giving names is a complex business.

In the recent Sheena Bora murder case there were two names that kept appearing – that of top cop Rakesh Maria, and one of the suspects, Peter Mukherjea. Maria and Peter are both traditionally “Christian names. But here Maria (pronounced Maariya) is a surname, and Mukherjea earlier lived in England, from where he may have picked up the Peter part of his name. I doubt if either of these dramatis personae are Christian.

There are also many communities that have started adapting names for sociological or demographical reasons. Many Parsees called Jamshed got anglicised to Jimmy. Goans like Pereira became Perry, or Fernandes became Ferns, in order to pass off as Anglo-Indians and obtain benefits from the British. Fed up with Jose and Kutty, Malayalis have now started calling their offspring Princy and Bincy.

In Punjab Shergill has become Sherry and Parminder has become Pammy. As part of “Christianisation” Makwanas in Gujarat became Macwan. In the north Lal became Lyall, while Pal became Paul.

I too changed my name, and for good reason. My baptismal name (I am letting the cat out of the bag) with its addition at Confirmation is (hold your breath) – Allan Peter Ralph Francis of Assisi de Noronha! Quite a mouthful. More than a line-full too! I couldn’t squeeze it into my exercise book when the teacher told me to write it twenty times. Exasperating. Legally I still have that name. But even in its short form, when entered onto my voter’s identity card, and transliterated back to English, it got distorted to L.N.D. Narona. It doesn’t serve as proof of my identity.

Names can sometimes have an adverse or prejudicial impact, as Shahrukh Khan tried to portray in the movie “My Name is Khan.” Many Hindus wonder why Indian Muslims retain Arabic or Persian names, instead of adapting to Indian culture? (Teesta Setalwad’s husband Javed Anand is an exception). In that sense Hindus definitely feel comfortable with Christians adopting Indian names, rooted in the local culture.

Here is a last salvo before I get real serious. What would you call cattle excreta – cow dung or bullshit? They mean the same but their connotations and applications are different. So we see that besides religion, there is a lot more that goes into a name – language, culture, convenience, circumstances, connotations and identity.

The bishops therefore should not try to impose their views on parents seeking to name their children.

There is also a flip side. Do parents have an unfettered right to name their children as they please? Dalits earlier gave their children derogatory names like Gobaru and Dukhi. Remember Kachra from the movie Lagaan?

In France there is an official list of names formulated by the State. France jealously guards its separation of State and Religion. This list was therefore not based on religion, but to protect the interests of the child.

Jesus, being born in a Jewish family, was given a common Jewish name. This is what scripture says about God assuming human form in Jesus. “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are” (Phi 2:7). He was “sending his own Son in the same human nature as any sinner” (Rom 8:3). “It was essential that he should in this way be made completely like his brothers” (Heb 2:17).

This is called the Incarnational approach; as distinct from the transplantation approach where you take a coconut sapling from Kerala to Kashmir, and expect coconuts to grow there.

The Second Vatican Council is even more explicit when it talks of the interface between religion, culture and language. The “Decree on the Bishops’ Pastoral Office in the Church” (Christus Dominus) exhorts bishops to provide for different languages (CD 23).

The “Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church” (Ad Genetes) says that missionaries are expected to “gain a more thorough knowledge of the history, social structure and customs of the people … to learn languages to the extent of being able to use them in a fluent and polished manner” (AG 26).

It further states, “from the customs and traditions of their people, from their wisdom and their learning … these churches borrow all those things which can contribute to … the proper arrangement of Christian life” (AG 22).

The “Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes) has an entire chapter on “The Proper Development of Culture.” It states, “There are many links between the message of salvation and human culture. For God … has spoken according to the culture proper to different ages” (GS 58).

And again, “The church is not bound exclusively and indissolubly to any race or nation, nor to any particular way of life or any customary pattern of living ancient or recent” (GS 58). There needs to be a balance between faith and culture, based on mutual respect.

This does not mean that I advocate anonymity. We should feel a legitimate pride in being Indian Christians, fully Indian and fully Christian. Whenever the Republic Day or Gallantry Awards are announced, or elections are held, I look to see how many Christians figure in the list. The names do give some indication of who they are. I know that Margaret Alva, Eduardo Faleiro and Oscar Fernandes are Christians.

I also know that former Defence Ministers George Fernandes and A.K. Antony are of Christian origin, though professedly agnostic. We know that Sonia Gandhi is also of Christian origin, though she declined to receive Holy Communion when the world was watching at Mother Teresa’s funeral! From their names we would not know that Purno Sangma or Vijay Amritraj are Christians. But D. Napoleon, an M.P. from Tamil Nadu, is not a Christian. Names have both their relevance and their limitations too.

So the next time somebody takes a child for baptism, do give a thought to both religion and culture. I hope that the Syro-Malabar bishops and parish priests will also read this. If you are left wondering as to why I am now known as chhotebhai, you’ll have to wait for an opportune moment; for it’s a long story. Till then let the name game continue.

(The writer is a former National President of the All India Catholic Union.)