Imagine my frustration with a name like Praveen spelled Pravin. When I say my name, 99% of the non Indians have absolutely no problem pronouncing it. But if they see my name first, then it takes them a while to get used to saying praveen instead of Previn(as in Andre Previn) or Pray-vin. No big deal. Understandable. But whenever the odd person tries to say “oh, let me use a nickname instead” and one middle aged lady actually suggested “PUNJAB” , I told her “fine, as long as I can call you Dublin”. She realized how foolish her gesture was and had no problem saying my name since and everything was cool.

The funny thing is it gets mispronounced by Pakistanis and Iranians a lot more because muslim women have the name Parveen.

My family is South Indian. I am just glad I didn’t get one of the superlong names with 4 or 5 god names embedded in it because then I may not be so insistent on the correct pronunciation. But I would try to shorten it with a more suitable Indian version if possible. (example: in the case of my cousin, Subi for Subramanyam).

I think part of the pronounciation is also how the others view your attitude. If they see any opening, they will try to get away with a mispronunciation. My sis has the name M a m a t h a. A lot of her colleagues say MumAATha. Funny thing is my friends immediately have no problem pronouncing her name. She is a softie when it comes to demanding her name be pronounced right.

Guilty as charged – sorry Siddhartha!

have some coffee my brother. according to family legend, the name was selected by my calcutta grandmother. for all i know, given social milieu and political inclination, it could just as well have been inspired by siddhartha shankar ray, prominent lawyer at the time and later indira crony and chief minister of west bengal (the last congree one before the left front took over in 1977). s. s. ray was the grandson of chittaranjan das, the early congress leader and first “native” mayor of calcutta. yeah, we was rollin’ like that at the time. (now? don’t ask.)

hilarious. the whole hermann hesse thing is a big bugaboo for us siddharth(a)s. being very light-skinned due to my biraciality (“so fair!” the aunties gushed, even the ones who disapproved of miscegenation… funny how that works), and on top of it being the right generation (born at the tail end of the summer of love), i always get the “were your parents hippies?”

hmph. at the time, my dad, scion of the decayed bengali bourgeoisie, was more of a maoist.

That was Kal Penn in American Desi