Chp 66. Mizo names

Me was just talking to my gurl a few hours ago. Just a couple of casual conversations, the usual lovers’ chitchat Suddenly we shifted to what names we should give to our children incase things work out fine between us (fingers crossed). She wanted to give an English Christian name along with the mizo name. I was like, comon I don’t have an English name and see how fine I’m doing. Everybody just loves to call me “Kima”. But she really wanted to have a Biblical name as a part of our kid’s name so I gave in. But I did try to discourage her by suggesting strange Biblical names like Nebuchadnazzar, Herod, Abishalom, Melchizedek, Baalathbeer etc but she saw right through what I was trying to do and so I stopped (Gawd I just love her soooo much).


But there was one thing we both agreed to. We are NEVER going to name our children with the mizo word “faka” and “dika” in it. No way are we going to have a “Lalfakawma” or “Zofakzuala” or “Lalrindika”. In Mizo, they sound very decent indeed, but not in english!

Any Mizo with a “fak” or “dik” in his name immediately becomes the butt of all jokes when he or she mingles with his/her non-mizo friends. Imagine someone named “Faka”. You would love to make fun of that wouldn’t you? And this aint the worst part. In Mizo, we add a prefix “ma” to call someone more lovingly. Like, people dear to me sometimes call me Ma-kima. Can you even imagine the riot it will cause when your Mizo friend is named Mafaka????

Apart from a “fak” or a “dik”, I guess any Mizo name is alright. Ofcourse there are always exceptions. Like my friend Jimmy. His full name is Jimmy Zochhuanawma Ralte. He was in the basketball team and recently we won a tournament. So there was this prize distribution ceremony during the School Assembly. Since his name was pretty long, it was cut short. The MC announcing the names, removed the last part of his name “anawma”. Hence it became “Jimmy Zochhu”!!!! Imagine someone saying that out loud infront of the whole school on the microphone! We Mizos couldn’t stop laughing the moment it was announced! Because in my language, Zochhu actually means “a Mizo female genitalia”!

For most Mizos who have a Christian English name before their Mizo name like Michael, John, Stephen, Mary, Esther etc life is much more easier for them than other Mizos who just have plain Mizo names. For example, they never get to hear “Huh? Come again?” when they say out their name. Nor do they have to deal with sly snickers from the person you’ve just told your name. And then ofcourse there are the other breed of Mizos who have English names, but nothing related to the Bible, like Osbourne, Stacy, Tracy, Emily, Jimmy, Robert, Jenny etc. Nice names I agree. But I just can’t help it, because whenever I come across such people, images of my favorite standup comedian Russel Peters immediately appears in my head. He pointed at a Chinese guy who had just introduced himself as Steve and sarcastically said, you’re right, that’s a Steve right there!

There was even a time when I actually thought of taking a legal action against the Government. If you have noticed, in most forms, like application to College, entrance exams, job applications, registration forms etc there is always a compulsory First name, Middle name and Last name field. Now Most of us Mizos don’t have such names. A Mizo with an English name would use his English part as the First name, his Mizo name as the Middle name, and his tribe name as the Last name. But people like us with no English name are left dumbstruck. So, what I used to do was, use “Vanlal” as my first name and “Ruatkima” as my middle name, even though Vanlalruatkima is one single name. No harm done yet. But slowly, the tables turned. As it was considered the proper etiquette to formally address a person by his middle/last name first followed by his first name, my name soon became “Ruatkima Vanlal” which made absolutely no sense (Its like changing "Subramanium" to "Nium brama Su" or "Amitabh" to a "Tabh Ami"). All my sports and educational certificates were soon awarded to a Mr. Ruat Kima Vanlal. Lucky guy. Hence I really felt it was kinda discriminatory to have a compulsory First, Middle and Last name field on such important Forms.

Anyway, I guess the bottom line is, it’s really important to consider various other languages first before naming your child. Look at me for example. I don’t wanna be asked “Do you know that kheema actually means mince meat?” for the rest of my life!

- Kima.