Naming the new-born, naamakarana in Kannada, a practice dating back to antiquity and continuing to this day in different sections of society, has its load of sentiment, sanctity and spirituality that cannot be expressed adequately in words. The Bard is quoted as saying that rose, called by any other name, smells as sweet, but that doesn’t apply to names of anything that needs unmistakable identity, particularly individuals. People were required to be identified as son or daughter of their respective father in official records, a law perhaps introduced during the country’s colonial rule, and followed even after change-over to self-rule. Every consumer product, whether naturally obtained (such as food crops) or manufactured (such as attires or automobiles) ought to be identified by unique names. Taking the matter further, every region, every city and even areas within cities need specific names that cannot be played with to avoid confusion, if not chaos. There is hardly any town or village across the country, name of which spells its historic origins, Mysuru serving as an instant example.
Among the more than 8,000 towns and cities as well as nearly 6,00,000 villages, a considerable number of them are connected with narratives in the land’s epics, notwithstanding the distinction between mythology and history about them. In either case, the names of these locations carry with them strong elements of sentiment, sanctity, spirituality and even a charge of emotion.
