What’s In A Name?

I still remember the day my brother was born.

And yesterday my baby brother had a baby boy!! What? Seriously what???

My relationship with my brother has always been the best thing in my life! No exaggeration. We look like twins we have the most fun together and we laugh for dayzzz!!

I had the greatest honor of naming the baby as the foi (dads sister)! And in true trusting fashion my brother and sister in law gave me 2 options to pick from so I didn’t stray and go with a name like Augustiya! (I really do like that name).

What’s funny is we hadn’t discussed boy names at all and one of the names was one that my husband and I had picked years ago if we ever had a boy. Yes that is the name I picked lol!

My brother and I have so many things in common, for one both our names are so difficult for the English language or anyone we’ve come into contact with on atleast 4 continents!

His is Vrajesh and mine well let me tell you some of the names I’ve been given: Rashma, Rushma, Reeshma, Rashima, Rushmore, so I’m either itchy (rash), in a hurry (rush), or a mountain with 4 male presidents’ faces!

Or the real truth is you are blind. Because there’s not even an I in my name! Rashima, is what I get most when I sign in for appointments. So you see my name in your computer spelled correctly and you still can’t see it?!

And my poor brother, VRajesh.. like what English word even has VR together .. oh none! Because it’s phonetically impossible for people to say! Like I love my own foi who named us, she’s my favorite aunt, yea there I said it… but were they having a sale on constants that day or what??

So needless to say, my brother and I wanted our kids to have the simplest names like D or J or T. This way you don’t even have to spell it, like you just get one alphabetic letter for your name and boom problem solved!

Why the fuck you think I go by Rae!! Because I have never felt so free!! No more correcting people, making up ways to make it easier to phonetically say my name:
“Like fresh without the F… like Fresh Resh”

But really my name is pronounced: “Rae-shh-ma”
people even pronounce that like its my reggae name shout out to Shabba Ranks..
Mr loverman… Shabba
Mr loverman… Shabba
Miss Rae… Shama…Please stop!

“A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet..” ~Shakesspeare’s Romeo & Juliet

That’s how I came up with Rae Fresh! The truth is at my age it gets really exhausting to have to talk about your name’s pronunciation the first 10 minutes of every conversation you have. It’s so much worse than “how’s the weather?” Because atleast with the weather there is room for variety between one day to the next. The name conversation is like Ground Hogs Day every single time.

So after all that, we tell the name to my aunts and uncles and even parents and what happens??? The opinions come out, oh it’s so long… first of all it has 2 syllables okay mr pushpakantchandra yea! You going to tell me about a long ass name?

Or what kinda name is that, or what’s it even mean, or is it based on rashi (astrological determination of what sound your name should start with ie Ra, Sha, Ma, Mi, Bu)

I mean you are going to have an opinion about kids names with you, because well your kid Bhaveshkumaralal goes by Bobby and your girl Shakuntala has changed her name to Sally!!

I love this! These conversations are a great lesson for why I love and stick to Good Vibes Only Tribe! Like can we just say “great” or “ok” or nothing, because silence really is better than unsolicited advice or opinions! Like you weren’t asked hey this is the name what do you think? So 🤐 (yes that’s an emoji with zippered lips!)

Its a lot of pressure to find a good name, hoping that this one choice, the first choice you make in a baby’s life will forever determine his destiny. Overwhelming to think that this one decision will forever brand your baby into the world, so cut the parents and the foi some slack.

Do you have a difficult name? Or a story behind your name? or are you a part of the Good Vibe Tribe!! Would LOVE to hear about it!

Write in the comments below!!

I know you must itching (and not just because you’ve been pronouncing my name Rash-ma) with anticipation wondering what is the name…… my nephew’s name is Jayden💙

April 23rd, 2018 Uncategorized