After 11 months home, almost everyone has caught on to the correct pronunciation of Niranjana (neh-rin-jen-ah). The ones who still say it wrong (neh-rahn-jahn-ah) are those who were practicing it before we went to India and were corrected by orphanage workers. The group still having trouble with her name includes a few of our 4-year-old friends, the Montessori school owner, and occasionally a grandparent.
So we were surprised at the county fair when Niranjana and I went to get matching henna tattoos from a tent run by an Indian family. The young woman from Bombay said, "Niranjana? That's not an Indian name." Sigh.....
Really, though, the more people I meet the less concerned I am about Niranjana's name. Sure, it takes a little practice to get it right, but at least with her ginger-molasses cookie complexion she looks like she might have an unusual name.
These are some of the names of kids that we now know, and almost all of them are white: Ajia, Mohamed, Aisha, Skadi, Atticus, Drex, Maija, Maysi, Malaya, Vander, Atar, and more. Niranjana is unique, but not completely out of place.
It reminds me of the time in middle school when there was another Melissa, but the skanky popular girl spelled it "Melysia."
So we won't be changing the spelling of Niranjana's name to match the pronunciation and we're not transitioning to a nickname any time soon. Unless you count "Sweetie."
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Name woes
Yep, we get all kinds of comments and pronunciations for Vija's name. Visha, Viha, Vijay, etc. Even Indian people rarely pronounce it correctly. From them we have gotten: Vijay, Vijaya, Dakshana, etc. The computerized systems at Doctors offices totally butcher Vijakshana. One Indian person even told my mom that she had never heard the name Vijakshana. I can't find it on Indian name lists either. I sometimes think that Kamala made the name up! Amy
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