Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Names in Pali

I called myself the Buddhist name Sravacitta, which to me means mind/heart listener because that was what I aspired to. Then my partner gave me the name Kamuka, which means "sweetheart", and a bunch of other things. Supposedly Kamuka travel agency went bust recently. Apparently it's a Cebuano word. In Bengali it means lascivious. Opse. But my partner thinks it means loving, caring sweetheart.

William was named Jyoti, which means spark, light or flame, but today I added Balin, which means strength. William worried that it was a girl's name. I googled Jyoti and women show up. It seems a women's name. My partner worries that it's not good to worry about gender that way, but I think he's 8 years old and he worries about such things so let's also give him another name. So Jyoti Balin is his new aggregate Buddhist name.

I named my partner Anandi, which means joy. She's very joyous. I added Mudita when she had sympathetic joy. And because there's a dakini named Kori, I call her Kori Anandi Mudita.

My youngest son's name is Santikara, which means peace maker, but he's anything but, he's ruled by jealousy. Perhaps a future aspiration. But he has so many other positive traits, I'm in search of another name for him to add on. I don't want to get rid of the name, I just want to add onto another one because he sometimes feels left out.

When I first read Crime and Punishment and War and Peace, I thought it was annoying the Russians had so many different pet names, it was confusing for the reader. Now I'm into pet names.

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