So how do we name children? My best suggestion, my first recommendation is consult a shrotriya guru, shrotriya guru or a pandit of Sanskrit in that order of preference. Shrotriya guru would what is the right word, what the word is suitable as a name, what would not suitable as name as rasi name, nakshatra name or non-nakshatra name. We have had both in our culture, and how to find a Guru, which is very difficult to find or a Sanskrit pandit. Sanskrit pandit is not as difficult, ask around, there is publication called inventory of Sanskrit scholar. If you Google with just four words, you will get a pdf on the web site of Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, if I not mistaken and that pdf has at least thousands, I think four or five thousand names with contact details, with address and many persons phone numbers also of Sanskrit scholars, or these days on Twitter also and social media you find quite of Sanskrit scholar. There is Venugopala Sankar, Venugopalan Sankar; very great Sanskrit scholar from Tamil Nadu. There are Balaram Sukla one of his students is here with us. Balaram Sukla ji tweets @achyutaanant.
There is Sampadananda Misra, some of us know him. He tweets @sampadananda. There is Sammodacharya, who is very great scholar of Sanskrit from Nepal, reach out to them on twitter. Many of them I have not mentioned here, just for, lack of space, but ask people who are teaching Sanskrit or who write Sanskrit poetry or book, they will be very happy to help to validate a name, or you know, give you some option, if this is not possible, then what I advise parents, they never go wrong hack, you don’t go wrong with this hack, just pick up Vishnu Sahasranama for a boy and Lalita Sahasranama for a girl. Take a good publication and take up a name from there. We cannot go wrong.
So, take any of these Sahasranamas, there are so many names. For this Sahasranamas, which are actually not common, the other day I was look at Shiva Sahasranama and I found a name Vimukth, mukth is a common name, we have mukth, mukthesh and all. Vimukth if you search on LinkedIn, there are hardly five of ten results; you can understand it easily. Vimukth you can pronouns it easily. Vimukth, Vimukthi, especially liberated, as the name of Shiva, in the Shiva Sahasranama. Similarly Athindra, name which are easy to pronouns or spell, Athindra or Vimukth, Nirama.
The name Ram is very popular, which is explained as ramanthe yogino asmin, ramanthe yogino asmin, ithi rama; He in home state delight, and the very beautiful name of Shiva, in the Shiva Sahasranama which is Nirama, Nirama which is explained as nithuran ramanthe yogino asmin nithirama, in the home the yogis always take delight is Nirama. Now nirama easily to pronouns name from Sahasranama. You will find rare name, you will find common names, easily to pronouns, not easily to pronouns and these are all beautiful names from the Vishnu Sahasranama or Lalita Sahasranama or in the Shiva Sahasranama. You can get easily, by publication from Geetha press or other publishers. There are many translations, English, Sanskrit or Hindi and we cannot go wrong with this kind of approach, by Sanskrit dictionary. That’s why I recommended parents, go for Apte. Apte Sanskrit – English or Sanskrit – Hindi dictionary, published by Motilal Banarsidass and I believe some other publications also, cost something like seven hundred, eight hundred rupees, not more, and do some due diligence, just check up the dictionary or you can consult the digital editions the university of zu koln website which has digitalized a lot many Sanskrit dictionaries. Cross check any information you read on baby names, some information’s is reference. So, you can easy to crosscheck, some information are not reference at all, you cannot crosscheck.
So, see if the content is transparent and verifiable, if somebody tells what a name, it some web sites, or some post on social media talks about a baby name and give such meaning. Check if there is some transparency where is this word used? Is it in the Vishnu Sahasranama? Is it in the Mahabharat? Is it in some of the Vedic samhitas, or is it somewhere else, in kavya literature? Kalidasa’s works, whether the original quotes are given or not, whether the meaning are given? So we can see if the information is, just like to do as a medical advice, we don’t trust any random medical advice on the internet. We see who is given the advice, which website is coming from, what is the kind of regular in details in that and finally question source if possible, especially on social media. I also welcome question on facebook and twitter feeds. if somebody has question on a name I try to explain some time, if I not explained it well, or if I made small mistake, I corrected, I acknowledged. So people sometimes do make mistake. So do questing if you have doubts before blankly relaying on name.
