This little baby girl entered our life recently and this is the story of her name.
The name hunting before the baby was born
We had heard that many people are ready with baby names even before birth and give the name right at the birth. But that meant we would need to be ready with both boy and girl names. Hence double the work. My lazy bones were not up for that and hence we delayed that for long.
But later I thought I’ll search for boy name and then add “i” or “aa” to end to make it a girl name 🙂 Shh.. don’t tell this to our baby girl now.
So we started our work on it. We had just started our work, had found a few names, but our baby girl announced her early arrival and got us busy changing the diapers. (We were watching the movie Up in the Air when she announced the arrival, but that’s a story for another day)
The name — what did we want
Now that she was here, we had a focused task of finding name for girl only. We started the task of hunting name with many thoughts in mind. It should have a strong and relatable meaning, should be uncommon, should sound well, should be easy to pronounce, should be contemporary etc.
One thought I had was to name the baby with something related to music or colour, to represent the colour and music she has brought to our life. Also, I felt spectrum in these two cover gamut of human emotions and in general evoke positivity. Music and colour also transcend through race, gender and artificial constraints we have put around ourselves like religion.
However, it was just a concept and not really a hard criterion.
The hunt
Thus started the hunt through the pages woven in world wide web. Having seen too many people naming their babies with letter A (beautiful names indeed though), we started our hunt with letter Z and worked backwards.
After going through hundreds of names, about 110+ names were picked. Like a true product guy, these were all put in a spreadsheet 🙂
However, something seemed missing and it felt like I had not quite done my research and brainstorming well enough.
Digging and brainstorming
So, I started approaching the name from different perspectives. These are different directions I took:
- Searching for exotic words in Hindi, Sanskrit, English, other languages and seeing if they can be made names
- Combining beautiful words with popular prefixes/suffixes like anki, akshi, ali etc. (Collected meanings of some of these suffixes and prefixes)
- Search for names around keywords in different languages e.g. Music, Sur, Raga, Scent, Colour, Melody, Rhythm, Song, Singing, Colourful, Scenic, Essence, Singer, Poet, Poem, Creation, Creativity, Nature etc.
- Making own names by mixing words or playing with words or our names
- Searching “exotic names, unusual names”, rather than just “baby girl names”
With this we added about 40 words more to our shortlist.
Shortlist didn’t really look like “Shortlist” now, so we started our work on reducing it.
So, the 150+ names became about 30+, then 20+, then 10+ and finally six.
These were the six.
| Shiragi (Custom made 🙂 ) |
Shira+Raag Shira = 1. Sweet; Veins; Head in Hindi 2. Melody, Tune/Song in Hebrew Shiragi = Sweet Raga ; One who has raga in their veins; One who has raga on their head |
| Mirisha | Arabic: God’s blessing Hindi: Warrior and Loyalty Bulgaria: Smell
Mirisa: |
| Idika | Parvati |
| Taashvi | Composed; charming, prosperity, lucky |
| Deedal | (Derived from English word Daedal): Skillful, Artistic, Intricate |
| Rishvi | Female Saint |
At this juncture we had a slight preference towards “Shiragi” and “Mirisha” as they were somewhat created by us and were much uncommon, but were still not very sure.
We floated these six around to family and friends. Some suggestions and preferences came in. Majority felt inclined towards Taashvi. Some liked Shiragi. Some showed liking for Idika. My father-in-law was strongly inclined towards Idika. Some showed strong disliking towards name Shiragi.
It was dangling like this for a couple of days when I had an epiphany. Following paragraph is the reason I have written this blog post.
Epiphany and the tipping point
I was listening to this Ted talk, and at about 5:15 speaker Ken Robinson says this:
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong.“
This got me thinking a bit and got me inclined towards the name Shiragi.
These were my thoughts then:
| Apart from the meaning that this name has, I think this name has the above mentioned concept linked to it. This name is a creation and it stands for being bold and creative, while not being afraid of being wrong.
It is possible that this name may not be the the best possible name. Maybe it won’t sound as nice as some other. If we choose this name, we could probably be wrong. But so be it. When she grows up, whether she relates to the meaning of the name or not (while I hope she does), she should definitely think that we are behind her when she wants to be bold, creative or does something which could probably go wrong. She shouldn’t be afraid of being wrong. This name would be a reminder to her that we were not afraid of being wrong, and she shouldn’t be as well. |
I messaged these thoughts to Mansi. She said that she agreed completely. And thus Shiragi was born! 🙂
Pronunciation: (shi·ra·gi | shi-rä-gē | शिरागी )
Here’s the pronunciation audio:
What a beautiful thought! She is very lucky to have you as parents!
Wow, some nice insightful scripting there Mukesh. Shiragi’s name is as beautiful as she is in person. God bless her.
Muki tussi GR8 ho. What a story. A gr8 life must have a GR8 beginning. Shiragi is indeed blessed for the headstart you have given her.
All the best to her and her parents for the years ahead !
TJ
Its beautiful 🙂
Truly labour of love! Great story Mukesh. Here’s wishing Shiragi a harmonious, happy, healthy and peaceful life☺️
Thanks MD ☺️