Branding Our Baby

In the not so distant past, during my stint with Hewlett Packard, every month we used to come out with dealer and distributor promotion schemes. In line with our intelligence & imagination of those days, these schemes always had some (in retrospect) corny names. So, there was a “June Jalwa”, “March Mania”, “November Rain”, the more modest “September Special”, and even one that (thankfully) got shot down by our Finance team, “October Orgy”.

However, optimist that I am, all this rich experience left me with a swagger and confidence, that when it comes to brand names, I carry a few feathers in my cap. That was until our baby was born and we had to brand her, rather name her. The first shock we the parents got, was right in the operation theatre. History has recorded for posterity that the first words we uttered when the doctor pulled out the baby and said, “It’s a girl”, was “Are you sure?”. The doctor was first bemused and then she gave us both a wary look – the one usually reserved for “baby girl haters”. We quickly recovered – and truth be told – both of us were always praying for a girl. The apparent confusion was created because our radiologist during every ultrasound kept referring to the baby as a boy. Much later we would be educated that referring to an unborn baby as a boy was a norm in Indian medical circles.

This ofcourse had serious repercussions for our baby branding exercise. During 9 months of pregnancy – after a very detailed 8 months exercise, we had arrived at a boys name – Vivaan. But as the saying goes, the best laid plans of men and mice……

And so the great search began again in all earnest – an exercise in patience and creativity.

Early in the negotiation, my wife drew out her guidelines. “The name needs to be unique and not boring”, she said. “Unique” translated to “no other girl with the same name in near vicinity or earshot”. “Boring” translated not so subtly to “not a name like Arun… and then for softening the blow, or Shweta – just too common”. Perhaps the way “Sony” was arrived at I thought – no apparent meaning but unique and catchy. That would be a hard act to follow!

Now it was my turn – “Well, no names starting with the letter “A” I said.

“Why is that?”

“Because I don’t want my daughter to go through the same troubles that I did”. I smiled – that line had a heroic touch to it.

“And what are those troubles?”, my wife wore a quizzical look.

“Well, I used to miss my attendance in school even if I was slightly late. And then I had to request for attendance again.”

My wife rolled her eyes – but I sensed I was on a good wicket here, so as an afterthought, “No names starting with Z either”. There went Zara, Zoya & the gang.

“Because a few smart teachers also take attendance at times, starting from the back”.

“What a thing to factor for”, my wife said – but this was an equal negotiation. So, all points had to be accommodated.

And so, the turf was decided – it had to be the safe mid-field alphabets like J, M or S.

What followed next, got home the point of why Google is so successful. Search “baby girl names” and the number of sites offering suggestions for free – with word origins, meanings, numerology, Tarot power and a few other such variables, will make any man sick in the stomach. It will also make any woman clap her hands in glee.
To cut a long story short, after quite a laborious data mining exercise on the net, we arrived at a few options.

“Ipsita?”, I volunteered.

“Nooooo”….. my wife almost shrieked. “Do you know that Ipsita (Roy Chowdhury) is the first witch in India?”. I did not need to hear more. Name dropped.

“Sarah” my wife said.

“Nice, but non-Hindu origins may not make everyone in the family happy”. Sarah RIP.

“Mehr” my wife proferred. Reminded me of a college time heart throb, Mehr Jessia. “Now, that sounds nice”, I said. “Mehr Rao” almost had a finality to it. The name ruled the charts for a while. That was until my wife came up with the gem: “But just imagine what happens if she were to marry someone with the surname Mehra”. “She would be called Mehr Mehra”. Like the joke about Lara Dutta marrying Brian Lara to become “Lara Lara”. Could be just a joke, but “Mehr” quickly dropped out of consideration.

It has been close to 2 months since our baby has arrived. But she continues to be, “Baby”, “Sweetie” and sometimes, “Fatso”.

There is a moment while we go shopping together and my wife in her usual process of selection has tried out many many many dresses – when suddenly, every next dress she asks me about, genuinely looks good to me.

I think I have arrived at that tipping point again in this baby branding exercise. Suddenly, every new name suggested sounds good to me.

So, “A” has made a comeback with “Arshia”. A few other names are in the reckoning. “Jia” (my favourite), “Manya” (nice again), “Anya” (“A” again – but sounds good now), “Sana” (good again)… and a few more.

The good news is that my wife is now down to the final 10 shortlist – the Top 10. And to put some sort of cap on the process, the naming ceremony has luckily got finalized for the 20th October. So our baby will soon have a name afterall.

From now until then though, like pop-charts that keep changing, the quest for that special, unique brand name will continue.

And yet, something tells me, regardless of what name gets finalized, regardless of whatever letter, whatever origins, that name will be a very special sound for us, forever.