what's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet" asks Juliet. This line has been immortal since.

How? The question part, through many philosophical and later brand & marketing discussions. The latter part of the line, at least in my life, through innumerable repeats in my grammar exercises. Worst of all when it featured in change to passive voice! Gah!(And I still could get that wrong.)

The Name, just doesn't stand for the legal name or identity. Let's go through some classifications.

1)Legal Identity: bare necessity.
2)Affection(nick name)-
Party scene- the husband calls his wife "honey" "darling" "sweetheart". His friend noted- "you love ur wife so much, calling her all sweet names"
"Well actually," he replied "I forgot her name a few years ago."

Joke aside, our affections towards a person is visible by the names we give them. 'Bittu' my earliest pet name, irritated me to no extent. That's what Mom would call me, and soon family friends, relatives frm mums side would call me that. The extent to which I would be embarrassed!

3) Character- 'lambu', 'chotu', 'baniya' and sometimes even expletives are used as a permanent name. There was a time, I would spell my name as AniRudd, in my short-lived fan worship of Rudd Van Nistelrooy, when he was with United. Soon people in my school made it into Anirude. Soon made that my Yahoo! ID . Mom noted that and said, pull it off, it will get into you and you will actually become rude.
"Paneer" titled by Himadri, for my love of paneer subjees.

4) Brand - Bacchan, Tendulkar, Ambani
There are many famous people. But its the ones with the unique surnames who are recalled first. That's why many people have screen names. Eminem, Akshay Kumar, Ice Cube. need I say more? I tried Prince Ani. It still is my e mail ID, but has met with mixed reviews. Ani Shetty seems to glide better.

5) Mockery - "Annie Besant" and "Paani doodh"(rhymes my name) stayed for a year when I stayed in Bima Nagar.

6)Cos they can't say it right - I stay in an area called Gaothan in Parle. Its literally a village in the city. And the folks hear speak a different brand of hindi/english/marathi. So they call me - "An-aa-rodd" no kidding, and not on purpose. Repeated corrections brought it down to "Aan-roodh". !!!!

7)The acquaintance equation - "Boss" "aunty" "uncle" "dost" "bhidu" you meet a stranger, you need to get his/her attention. Sir/madam/excuse me are cliches, the Indian version got its unique twists. We(mumbaikars specially) use the captioned terms even when we do not have any kind of association the word relates to. We hope, and it works too, that a bonhomie is created out of it and the favour we need is obtained. We even thank them with the same 'name'.

8)Pride - WPUJC Vaas. That's not a ship, its a famous cricketer from Sri Lanka. Some guys include names of even their great grandfather in their names. Some even add the name of their clan/ region/ village/ area in the village. Titles too, Dr. CA etc. matter. A name is not considered complete without them.

I'm sure more classifications can come but for now -
-----Thank You---