What’s in a Name? : The National Sustainable Naming Mission
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
So declared William Shakespeare.
The Professor looked at me over his cup of coffee.
“Clearly,” he said, “Shakespeare never attended an Indian naming ceremony.”
“What difference would that have made?”
“He would never have written that sentence.”
A child is born.
In many countries, the parents choose a pleasant name.
In India, we first assemble what resembles a high-level selection committee.
The grandmother has a favourite.
The grandfather wants continuity.
The family priest opens the panchang.
The astrologer studies the horoscope.
An uncle remembers a saint.
Someone suggests naming the baby after a successful businessman.
A cousin checks whether the Instagram handle is available.
The baby sleeps peacefully through all this, blissfully unaware that its identity is being negotiated by twelve adults and Saturn.
The Professor smiled.
“The only stakeholder absent from the meeting is the child.”
When the Planets Managed Branding
Our ancestors did not choose names casually.
The Namakarana Sanskara, commonly counted among the traditional Hindu samskaras, recognised that a name was much more than a convenient label. It connected the child to the family, the community, the cosmos and, quite often, the divine.[1]
Many families consulted the horoscope. The baby’s nakshatra suggested the opening sound or syllable of the name.
The planets did not decide whether the child would become a doctor, musician or environmental consultant, but they often had surprisingly strong opinions about whether the name should begin with “Ka,” “Ma” or “Vi.”
“The planets,” said the Professor, “appear to have had a lifelong interest in branding.”
Then came the gods.
Ram. Krishna. Shiva. Vishnu. Lakshmi. Durga. Ganesh. Hanuman.
Every time somebody called your name, someone also uttered the name of God.
“Perhaps the earliest loyalty programme,” said the Professor.
Then there were the grandparents. Families proudly repeated names across generations until every household had multiple Govinds and Shankars answering the same call.
“Govind!”
Three men looked up.
One was the grandfather, one was the grandson and one had merely come to repair the refrigerator.
Names later became aspirations: Vivek, Anand, Satya, Shraddha and Shanti. Parents quietly expressed hope.
Whether the child cooperated was another matter.
A boy named Shanti could spend his childhood breaking furniture. A girl named Shraddha might question every family tradition. Satya could grow up to write corporate sustainability reports.
Then India globalised.
Parents wanted names that were ancient yet modern, spiritual yet corporate, unique yet familiar, and Sanskrit in origin but easy to pronounce in California.
“The horoscope,” sighed the Professor, “now competes with Google.”
The Person We Hear Before We Meet
He looked at me.
“When you hear a name, what do you imagine?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Rajesh.”
I immediately pictured a dependable office manager carrying an ageing laptop bag.
“Sunita.”
A school principal who could silence forty children simply by removing her spectacles.
“Rohan.”
Gym membership. Half-marathons. Wireless earbuds.
“Pooja.”
Organised. Kind. Colour-coded spreadsheets.
“Nitin.”
Engineer. Excel enthusiast. Secret poet.
“Priya.”
The office assumes she enjoys organising farewell gifts.
“Amit.”
Everyone knows three. One is brilliant. One owes you money. One has been saying, “Let’s meet next week,” for five years.
“Sanjay.”
Has discovered a shortcut that takes twenty minutes longer but insists it avoids traffic.
“Neha.”
Remembers everyone’s birthday and has already booked the restaurant before the rest of the group has agreed to meet.
“Arjun.”
Competitive. Focused. Uses the phrase “raising the bar” even while ordering breakfast.
The Professor folded the newspaper.
“All these people exist only in your imagination.”
He explained that the human brain loves shortcuts. A name becomes an instant biography. Before we know the person, we think we already know the person.
Artificial Intelligence is criticised for profiling people.
Human Intelligence has been doing it for centuries.
Without electricity. Without a data center.
Do Names Actually Sound Like People?
Psychologists call one part of this phenomenon sound symbolism. It is the tendency to associate certain speech sounds with qualities such as size, shape, movement and, in some experiments, personality.
Softer, flowing sounds may make a name seem warmer or gentler. Sharper consonants can make another name sound more energetic or assertive.
Vowels matter too.
The “ee” sound is often associated with something smaller, lighter or sharper. Deeper “o” and “oo” sounds may suggest something larger or rounder. These associations are tendencies, not universal laws, and they can vary across languages and contexts.[2]
“So Meena enters the room gently,” I said, “while Kartik arrives carrying a PowerPoint presentation?”
“That,” replied the Professor, “is not a scientific conclusion. It is your personal contribution to the decline of psychology.”
Researchers have tested whether sounds in first names create personality impressions. In laboratory experiments, names containing flowing sounds were associated with traits such as agreeableness and emotionality, while names containing harder stop consonants were more often associated with extraversion.
But when the researchers examined the actual personalities of 1,071 people, they found no real-world evidence that the sounds in their names predicted who they really were.[2]
In other words, a name may create an image in the listener’s mind.
It does not install a personality in its owner like a mobile application.
A child called Veer does not automatically become brave.
A child called Komal is not contractually required to remain gentle.
And a person called Prakash may still forget to pay the electricity bill.
Does the Name Shape the Person?
The more interesting question is whether a name gradually influences the person who carries it.
The evidence is intriguing, but not magical.
Research has found that easily pronounced names tend to be evaluated more positively than difficult-to-pronounce names. The explanation offered is that the brain generally prefers information it can process fluently. What is easier to process may feel more familiar, and what feels familiar may be judged more favourably.[3]
This does not mean that everyone should immediately rename themselves Raj.
It means that a person reading a conference programme, considering a political candidate or examining a résumé may form a small impression before the individual has even spoken.
Names can also reveal, or appear to reveal, gender, religion, ethnicity, region, caste, class and generation.
The name may therefore influence how teachers, employers, colleagues and strangers respond to its bearer.
A well-known field experiment in the United States sent fictitious résumés carrying names associated with different racial identities. The qualifications were comparable, but the callback rates were not. The experiment demonstrated how names can influence social treatment without changing the competence of the person supposedly carrying the name.[4]
The name may not directly change the person.
It may change how the world behaves towards the person.
And if the world behaves differently towards you for twenty years, some part of that treatment may eventually enter your confidence, choices and social behaviour.
One influential set of experiments even reported that people could match certain adult faces with their names at rates slightly above chance. The researchers suggested that people might gradually adopt aspects of the cultural expectations associated with their names through hairstyle, grooming, expression or behaviour.[5]
The Professor looked concerned.
“So the face begins to comply with the birth certificate?”
“Possibly.”
“This is a serious threat to individual freedom.”
The finding does not prove that names determine faces or personalities. It suggests something subtler: society develops an image of a typical person bearing a particular name, and the person may, consciously or unconsciously, move slightly towards that image.
Parents choose the name.
Society supplies the job description.
The National Sustainable Naming Mission
A few days later, the Professor showed me a government notification.
It had not actually been issued, but it seemed administratively inevitable.
The Government, demonstrating its sensitivity to the planet and its determination to make a distinguishing gesture to the world, had proposed the National Sustainable Naming Mission.
From the next financial year, every newborn baby would have to carry a name that communicated sustainability.
“Why from the financial year?” I asked.
“Because even a child’s arrival must be aligned with budgetary provisions.”
The notification explained that international climate negotiations had produced insufficient progress.
Carbon markets remained complicated.
Climate finance was inadequate.
Lifestyle change was slow.
Municipal waste continued to believe in reincarnation.
The government had therefore decided to intervene at the level of nomenclature.
“No child,” the directive declared, “shall enter the Republic without indicating a measurable commitment to planetary well-being.”
Every proposed name would undergo a Green Name Assessment.
The family astrologer would continue to identify the auspicious first syllable. A newly appointed District Sustainability Officer would then determine the appropriate ecological category.
The horoscope would examine Saturn.
The officer would examine Scope 3 emissions.
Parents would submit three preferred names, the child’s horoscope, proof of residence and the family’s latest electricity bill.
Fortunately, Sanskrit vocabulary and literature offered an abundant supply of environmentally responsible names.[7]
Children could be named Prithvi, Bhumi, Vasudha, Urvi or Dhara to represent the Earth.
Prakriti would communicate nature.
Aranya, Vana, Kanan, Pallav and Taru would represent forests, foliage and trees.
Neer, Jal, Salila, Sarita and Varuna would represent water.
Vayu, Pavan and Anil would communicate clean air, provided ambient air-quality standards were achieved before the child entered school.
Urja would represent energy.
Tejas could be approved specifically for solar energy.
Punarnava, suggesting renewal, would be encouraged in families practising reuse, repair and circularity.
Ritam, associated with order and harmony, would be reserved for children whose parents submitted their tax returns on time.
Twins would receive integrated names such as Jal and Vayu, Prithvi and Prakriti or Urja and Tejas
Triplets would be named Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, although the Sanskrit Translation Committee had requested an extension.
The directive also introduced performance-linked nomenclature.
A child called Neer would have to reduce household water consumption by the age of twelve.
Aranya would plant ten trees before obtaining a driving licence.
Urja would not be allowed to leave lights on in an empty room.
Prithvi would automatically become chairperson of the housing society’s waste-management committee.
Punarnava would receive all clothes previously worn by older cousins.
This last provision, the government clarified, had already been successfully implemented in Indian families for several centuries.
Parents raised practical questions.
“What happens if Prithvi becomes an investment banker?” one father asked.
“That is permitted,” clarified the ministry, “provided she finances the transition.”
“Can we call our son Lakshya?”
“Yes, provided the target is measurable, time-bound and postponed at least twice.”
Enter Generation Beta
The notification announced that these sustainably named children would become nation’s contribution to a new global generation.
“Generation X?” I asked.
The Professor stared at me.
“Gen X is not currently being born. Gen X is currently searching for its reading glasses and complaining that television remote controls have too many buttons.”
Under the classification proposed by the demographic research firm McCrindle, children born between 2025 and 2039 belong to Generation Beta, following Generation Alpha.[8]
The boundaries are not official or scientifically fixed. Researchers disagree on where one generation ends and the next begins.[8]
Still, Generation Beta appeared appropriate.
It would be the first generation named after a software version.
Every child would arrive with enormous potential, several unresolved issues and an expectation of regular upgrades.
Generation Beta would grow up surrounded by artificial intelligence, automation, climate anxiety, biometric identification and grandparents who still saved empty biscuit tins.
Each child would receive a Sustainable Name Identification Number in addition to Aadhar.
The acronym, unfortunately, was SNIN.
A committee was established to improve it.
A Strategic Approach to Saving the Planet
As we left the café, I asked the Professor whether the National Sustainable Naming Mission would actually help.
“Probably not,” he said.
“Then why introduce it?”
“Because naming a problem is much easier than solving it.”
We walked another hundred metres.
“But perhaps,” he continued, “there is some value in filling every classroom with Prithvis, Neers, Aranyas, Vayus and Prakritis.”
“How?”
“Imagine a corporate boardroom in 2050. Prithvi will question the land acquisition. Neer will ask about water consumption. Aranya will challenge the biodiversity assessment. Urja will examine the energy transition. Punarnava will demand circularity.”
“And the managing director?”
“His name will be Lakshya.”
“Meaning target?”
“Yes. He will assure everyone that the targets will be achieved by 2070.”
I thought about this.
Perhaps Shakespeare was right. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
But a forest called Aranya might be slightly harder to cut down when your daughter has the same name.
The National Sustainable Naming Mission may not save the planet.
But it offers the government a politically elegant solution. When we cannot leave our children a sustainable planet, we can at least leave the planet in their names.
Thus, Prithvi, Neer, Vayu and Aranya will inherit a depleted Earth, polluted rivers, unbreathable air and disappearing forests, but they will never be allowed to say that the previous generation had forgotten sustainability.
We had printed it clearly on their birth certificates and those names would have undergone enviornmental (sustainability) clearance.
Endnotes
- Namakarana and naming traditions
Namakarana is the Hindu name-giving rite. Traditional practices vary across communities, texts and regions. Naming may consider the birth star or nakshatra, family deity, month of birth, grandparents and the name used in everyday life.
Maharashtra State Gazetteers, “People and Rituals: Naming Ceremony”:
https://gazetteers.maharashtra.gov.in/cultural.maharashtra.gov.in/english/gazetteer/CHANDRAPUR/people_rituals.html
Himalayan Academy, “Choosing a Hindu Name”:
https://www.himalayanacademy.com/media/books/how-to-become-a-hindu/web/ch08_sec04.html
The sources confirm the naming rite and the use of birth-star-linked syllables, though actual family practices are diverse.
- Sound symbolism, consonants, vowels and perceived personality
Sidhu, Deschamps, Bourdage and Pexman found that people associated different sounds in first names with different personality traits. However, when 1,071 individuals completed personality inventories, the researchers found no real-world evidence that the sounds in their names predicted their actual personalities.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General:
https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000662
PubMed record:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31368761/
A review of sound symbolism in names, including associations between speech sounds, shapes and perceived qualities, is available through the Association for Psychological Science:
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/current-directions/0963721419850134/
The research supports the creation of impressions, not phonetic determination of personality.
- Ease of pronunciation and favourable impressions
Laham, Koval and Alter conducted five studies on the “name-pronunciation effect.” Easier-to-pronounce names and their bearers tended to be evaluated more positively. The effect should not be interpreted as proving that pronunciation determines professional success.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.002
Publisher page:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103111002927
- Names and discrimination in recruitment
Bertrand and Mullainathan sent fictitious but comparable résumés to employers in Boston and Chicago. Résumés were randomly assigned names perceived as African American or White. Those carrying White-associated names received substantially more callbacks. The study concerned racial discrimination in the United States and should not be mechanically applied to every country or social identity.
American Economic Review:
https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828042002561
American Economic Association article page:
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2F0002828042002561
- Matching names with faces
Zwebner and colleagues reported a face-name matching effect in which participants and a computer algorithm matched some faces to names at rates above chance. The authors proposed that social expectations associated with names could influence appearance. This is evidence of a statistical effect in their experiments, not proof that a name determines someone’s face.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000076
PubMed record:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28240942/
- Nominative determinism and disputed career effects
Claims that people gravitate towards careers resembling their names have often been linked to “implicit egotism.” Uri Simonsohn challenged prominent name-similarity findings and argued that confounding factors could produce spurious associations.
Psychological Science:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611413937
PubMed record:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21705520/
A related, broader critique appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021990
The Indian examples involving Prakash, Deepak, Neeraj, Pallavi, Vikas and Satya are fictional illustrations written for humour. They are not research findings.
- Sanskrit-derived environmental names
The Sanskrit-derived names in the fictional government scheme draw on established words associated with the Earth, nature, forests, water, air, energy, light and renewal. Meanings can vary according to context, grammar, transliteration and textual use.
Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, searchable edition hosted by the University of Cologne:
https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/2020/web/webtc2/index.php
- Generation Beta
McCrindle defines Generation Beta as those born from 2025 to 2039, following Generation Alpha, which it defines as 2010 to 2024.
McCrindle, “Welcome Gen Beta”:
https://mccrindle.com.au/article/generation-beta-defined/
These boundaries are not universally accepted. Pew Research Center cautions that generational categories are not scientifically fixed, precise or universally agreed upon.
Pew Research Center, “5 Things to Keep in Mind When You Hear About Gen Z, Millennials, Boomers and Other Generations”:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/22/5-things-to-keep-in-mind-when-you-hear-about-gen-z-millennials-boomers-and-other-generations/
Thus, a child born in 2026 may be called Generation Beta under McCrindle’s framework, but this is a demographic label, not an official classification.