It’s so hard choosing a name for your child. It’s one of the most important decisions we make for them - most likely they’ll have to live with it for the rest of their lives. As a British Asian it’s even harder. Get it wrong and it can mean playground hell, constant mispronunciations, and a lifetime of discomfort.
In the weeks leading up to her birth, I fretted over what to call my daughter. My (English) husband and I decided she was to have an Indian first name and her father’s surname. As we pored over lists of baby names, I felt like it was a cultural minefield.
Maybe I should go for a ‘fusion’ name like my own one – Sheela? Maybe, Anita, Rita or Ruby? Names that were frequently chosen by anxious immigrant parents in the 60s and 70’s, to make sure their children would fit in; names that wouldn’t cause any problems and were easily pronounceable. To me, these reminded me how, as brown skinned immigrants, our parents always had to be as accommodating as possible. And, though I love these names, I now resent that feeling.
I don’t want to feel like I’m appeasing anyone. I feel British – I’ve grown up with Top of the Pops, I love Christmas and even have a PhD in English Literature! I belong here - I have a right to be as Indian as I like, and I want my daughter to have a name that openly reflects my Bengali heritage. I want her to feel the opposite of the deep shame I felt as a child in 70s Britain. We were abused on the streets, with words like p***i spat out by passing skinheads; we grew up watching openly racist TV programmes and I was ashamed of speaking Bengali in public. I don’t want to pass on any of that.
As much as I don’t want to compromise, I still need to find a name that’s pronounceable in English - my daughter is the one who’ll have to live with this name. We come across the name Durga, the most revered Hindu goddess among Bengalis in India. In my language, the name sounds gorgeous:
It's pronounced ‘Dthoor-gaa’.
But that ‘Dth’ at the start is not easy for most English speakers.
I worry that Durga would be turned into ‘Dur–ger’. Rhymes with ‘Burger’.
Worse still, ‘Dur’ easily turns into ‘Duh’ - the sound you make when someone’s said something stupid.
I can’t do that to my daughter, all the beauty of the name lost within a few minutes of being in any British playground.
But Indian gods are non-exclusive when it comes to names. In Durga’s case, we find a name that I’ve never heard of before, but which is one of its most ancient forms in Sanskrit:
Ishaana
Written ঈশানা
When you say it in Bengali, it’s ee-shaan-aa, with even stresses on all three syllables, a parade of long luxuriant vowel sounds and soft consonants. Hopefully it will survive the playground test.
I love the story of Durga, a ten-armed warrior goddess who saved the universe when it was being threatened by an evil demon. She rode in, astride her lion, brandishing her trident, using it to decapitate him. It was thrilling, a story told to me as a child. And every October, we’d congregate for Durga Puja with hundreds of other Bengalis from all over London, in the municipal surroundings of Hampstead Town Hall, to celebrate her victory.
‘Ishaana’: it offers a glimpse of the otherworldly, as well as a memory of my parents and their friends recreating for themselves a tiny piece of home in London – the West Bengal of their own childhoods, carried forever in their imaginations. It’s perfect.