December 14, 2009

The mystery of "A"

I received yet another baby news today. That makes the total of 5 babies among my friends (friends are unrelated to each other: more or less) this year. Coincidentally all of them are boys. Even more surprisingly, all the parents have decided to name their son starting with alphabet 'A'. And that made me realize, though I am not sure if I am over-reacting/over-seeing, but I think majority of Indian parents name their sons starting with alphabet 'A' . And this is not a new trend either.


I remember when I was in school, more than half of boys in my class (whenever I had boys in my class) had names starting with alphabet 'A' : I remember having 5 'Ashish' in our class of 25 in IV grade!

I don't understand why that is? What is the charm of naming their son starting with letter 'A'? Except that they might be one of the first in the roll-call, that is, if the roll call is arranged by the first name. In western culture, they prefer arranging people with their last name so that can't be the reason (most of these parents are residing out of India). So why? What's the charm of alphabet 'A'? Or may be it's just my imagination. After all I haven't done any statistical analysis, it's a mere observation based on my personal experience. May be I am just surrounded by weird people! :)

P.S.: And I think second most popular alphabet is 'V',  followed by 'S', 'P' and 'R'. I think 75-80% of any  class population (boys only) includes the names staring with these five letters. But then again, I haven't done any statistical studies. This is a mere observation.
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5 comments:

  1. ArslanDecember 15, 2009 at 12:44 AM

    5 Ashishs out of 25 is a lot! My name begins with A. I think it's something to do with being 'first' at least somewhere, even if it is in a name..

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  2. RichaDecember 15, 2009 at 6:28 AM

    @ Arslan: Tell me about it. At times it used to seem that our class is made of Ashishs.

    Hmm..interesting. And guess it doesn't matter girls are first in anything...ah, our patriarchal society: I really pity guys in this case though. To start with they are named for life and they can't even change that! And then the enormous pressure to succeed. At least girls have creative names this way. :)

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  3. Shilpa GargDecember 16, 2009 at 12:45 AM

    Interesting...
    Well, my son's name starts with A... :D
    Aaryan is his name. And when he were looking for a name for him...'A' was not the only letter we looked at. But somehow I got some fixation for Aaryan and hence this name. No such thought about first in roll call etc.
    I guess, he is not gonna like it later on, in school and college when he will be the first one for Viva exams etc!! :D

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  4. RichaDecember 16, 2009 at 9:05 PM

    @ Shilpa: So may be parents these days simply find names starting with 'A' then? It's some kind of fashion then? Ahhh..so the apt title for the post woul dbe then "Fashion of 'A'". :P

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  5. RichaJanuary 24, 2010 at 3:24 PM

    @ Shilpa: So may be parents these days simply find names starting with 'A' then? It's some kind of fashion then? Ahhh..so the apt title for the post woul dbe then "Fashion of 'A'". :P

    ReplyDelete

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