Monday, July 31, 2006

What's In A Name

Time and again this question has been asked and it has never been easy to answer the same. As far as individuals are concerned, their name is the word which is used more by others than by themselves.

Movie names are always interesting. There, gimmick is part of the game when naming a film. Kannada film star Upendra started the trend in Kannada film industry, of using unconventional names for his films. Look at this titles : Om(Symbol and not the word here), 'A', 'H2O' - unique in its own sense.

When we talk of names I remember a story heard in my childhood : 2 students were quarelling in the class, so the teacher gave the punishment of writing their own name, 100 times. But again there was trouble with one of the guys name being Shiva Kumar and another being Somanahalli Somanna Gowda.

Movie names are interesting to observe, as they are the ones which grab the attention of the viewers first. And there are often disputes over the name of the film with one producer already registered that name and another trying to look for the same name. Thats why the caption we see at the bottom of film titles to resolve any dispute. For example Deewar - Let's Bring Our Heroes Home was named so to avoid any clash with Deewar the Amitabh block buster of yesteryear. In Kannada, Namma Basava was renamed so because Basava was already registered. But in the posters, Namma was too small and Basava was prominent.

Origin of company names is very interesting. Look at these : Reebok - is the alternate spelling of rhebok(changed to Reebok in 1960 from a original name Mercury Sports), Adidas - from the name of the founder Adolf(Adi) Dassler, Cisco - short for San Francisco, ESPN - Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.

There are instances when a newcomer to the city get confused to get into the wrong place, because there are two areas in that city by the same name. If somebody's name matches with that of some celebrity he/she gets unexpected honours and what not. Thats how the world is, when you here a catchy name you are sure to have some impression about the person you are going to meet.

Comments are welcome.

Raveesh



referred links for the info in this post
- Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies
- Answers.com
http://www.answers.com/topic/reebok-international-ltd

2 comments:

  1. nice post raveesh.

    upendra started uncoventional name from movie "sshhh".

    it seems u are name doesn't matches with any great personality. Dont worry u will be great personality one day

    ReplyDelete
  2. ya u r right
    Upendra started his unconventional naming of films from "Shh..."

    and for the other point, identity must be unique u know...

    ReplyDelete

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