There is always a risk associated with my name. Whenever I pronounce my name for someone who needs to write it down, there is 60% chance of my full name being misspelled. My name is 'Ajoy Kumar Singha'. Of these three words Kumar is often the only correctly spelled one.
I spent my childhood in a bengali dominated area. The pronounce the word 'ajay - commonly written version of my name' as 'o-joy'. So when I wrote my name in primary school they modified it to 'Ajoy'.
Similarly with my surname 'singha'. When you write this spelling in Bengali or Manipuri, the pronunciation is 'sing-ho'- lion in Bengali. 'Singha' is not a popular surname in rest of the India except in southern Assam. So when you say your sure name is 'singha', they write either 'sinha'- popularised by Shatrughan Sinha or 'singhal' - extra L to suite what they have heard so far.
Here is some of the problems I faced due to my incorrectly spelled name: :-)
1. ICICI Bank sent me a gold credit card with incorrect surname 'Sinha' although I had submitted my passport copy, PAN card and salary slip with the application.
2. An MBBS doctor spelled my name as 'Ajay Sinha' in his prescriptions, all test reports and medicine bills. I had a big fight with my medical insurance company when I wanted to reimburse the cost.
3. I donated Blood during my college days. I was awarded with a donor's card with 'Ajay Singha' written on it
.....list goes on.
A friend of mine sent me a list of names with meanings of each name. I did not find my name 'Ajoy' in that list. That inspired me to do some research on my name. The easiest way was to do some Google search. Here is what I found out.
1. Google web-search with 'Ajoy' returned the following : Results 1 - 10 of about 345,000 for Ajoy. (0.19 seconds)
2. The same search when I clicked 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button directs to http://www.ajoy.com.au/
3. According to register.com information, ajoy.com, ajoy.net are already registered domains. ajoy.info is still available.
4. Google Image-search with 'Ajoy' returned : Results 1 - 20 of about 6,060 for Ajoy. (0.09 seconds). All size image with moderate sate search on.
5. Google web-search with 'Ajoy Kumar Singha' without double quotes returned the following :Results 1 - 10 of about 743 for Ajoy Kumar Singha. (0.21 seconds)
6. Google web-search with 'Ajoy Kumar Singha' with double quotes returned the following :Results 1 - 8 of 8 for "Ajoy Kumar Singha". (0.26 seconds). All this results were related to my blog, my comments on other blogs, my profile on wikipedia, my engineering college website guest book entry.
7. I did the same search with the pages from India option. I got the following result : Your search - "Ajoy Kumar Singha" - did not match any documents.
8. I tried 'define:Ajoy' (finding the definition of Ajoy) on Google search did not give any result either.
9. While doing all this I found out one river in West Bengal (India) called 'Ajoy'. I did a Google Map search for the same but could not locate it.
10. Finally I surfed http://babynames.indobase.com/indian-boys.php and found out the meaning of 'Ajoy', which says the meaning is 'Joyful'.
Here is one image search result from http://spiritnetwork.com/ajoy/titleajoy.gifajoy/titleajoy.gif
So next time you want to use my name for writing, pronouncing, please do it properly.
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I wasted few hours for writing and you wasted few minutes for reading this post. If you want to do the same time wasting activity, please go ahead, do a same type of research with your name. And send the material, link or e-photocopy to aksingha@gmail.com I would be happy to waste some of my minutes for you.
Hi Ajoy,
This is a good time pass, not time wasting.
@ Anonymous,
Thanks. Don't you think it will be fun if you do some research on your name 'anonymous'?
-Ajoy
http://bharatisingha.blogspot.com
Hi Ajoy,
As a fellow “Ajoy,” I thought that I would share with you a bit of feedback from my own experiences having sported this name for 30 + years.
Introducing myself verbally is nearly impossible as most every westerner that I’ve ever met hears my name as “George,” or somewhat less often as “Andre.”
“Hi, I’m Ajoy Chandra” is invariably followed by squinty, unsure eyes, and the greeting “Nice to meet you George.”
Desi’s will usually default to “Ajay,” even when I go out of my way to pronounce that “o,” rather than correctly swallowing it within the “y” caboose. My observations are based upon having lived in the U.S. for most of my life. I have visited West Bengal -- where I hear that the Ajoy’s roam free and plentiful -- only briefly so don’t have a very good idea of how “Ajoy” would play there.
And here’s the kicker: While my first name is Bengali, I have the very common Punjabi surname, “Chandra,” and this unlikely combination often throws even Desi’s for a loop. Alas, for my entire life, I have had to spell my name on voicemail messages (less often now, for secretaries), new friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc.
Cheers,
Ajoy Chandra
New Jersey, U.S.A.
Hi, my name is Vikram Singha. I am of bengali origin but have grown up in Rajasthan. By the way Singha is also a surname among Sikhs. e.g. Ranvijay Singh Singha of MTV Roadies fame and also sometimes singh is spelt as Singha among Oriya Rajputs like Singha Deo.