On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 2:54 PM, ashok _ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
how some tribal > groups in Kenya (the gikuyu, the mijikenda...) name their children... > > the first son is named after the paternal grandfather and the second > after the maternal grandfather, girls are named similarly according to > paternal and maternal grandmothers. > > Child number 3 and beyond are named after their paternal/maternal > uncles and aunts using the same gender based mechanism. > > So if you know the family history, and you know the "number" of > the child, you can automatically calculate the name of the child. Some TamBrams (Tamizh Brahmins) have exactly the same custom, but it is made quite complicated by the fact that some families name the first-born and the second-born automatically after the grandparents, and some others name the children after the grandparents only after the said grandparent has passed away (ok, well, died, if you like.) So the calculation of the name of the grandparent from the child's name becomes difficult. My father's family had the automatic nomenclature process, where the names Natesan and Viswanath kept alternating; in my generation, the practice was given up as my uncle's son was called Natesh, but he suffered from Down's syndrome, and my parents felt that they would not name their son similarly. And my brother doesn't have children, which simplifies matters...if your grandparents or parents didn't have children, it's unlikely that you will have any, too. In my father-in-law's family, it is the third son who was named Narayan after his late grandfather....and no sons have been born after my father-in-law's demise to see if this practice will be kept up. Add to this the present-day custom of conferring a "namakaranam" name for the child at the naming ceremony, and then addressing hem by some other name which is the one always used...I suspect the "traditional" name is only to appease the elders! Certainly, neither my husband nor my daughter has never once used the names they were given by the priest at the naming ceremonies...but when, at the temple, the priest asks my husband for his name, he gives the "sharman" name, not the one that he has used all his life. Makes me wonder if the blessings of the god being worshipped will go to the right "address" or not! Interesting to see how customs come into being, and then die out within a generation or two.
