Whats in a name

I saw Orhan Pamuk's My name is red in the library and wanted to read it. I am curious about his book as I have heard much about him here and there. I admit that the work of Nobel laureates has ever been beyond my understanding.

Dont you think Orhan has a nice sound to it! Few months back I met a sweet Turkish lady with twinkling greyish blue eyes, whose husband's name was Orhan and she pronounced it very musically (OrHAAN). Maybe her affection to him also added to the charm.

A name defines the identity of a person, and so is a very important thing to that person. Names have character too.
And when someone doesnt even take the time to pronounce it right or spell it right, even when they know the person quite well, it is not right. At least I get very annoyed. You are not my friend until you know how I spell my name and how I expect you to pronounce it.

Some people have very beautiful names, many a times influenced by the local culture. For instance, what is Maitri or Maitreyi in other languages is Moitri in Bongland, sanjay is Shonjoy, or Kajal is Kajol.
He he sometimes the local language screws up the name too. Eg. in Tamil (Tamizh), maha is not accepted. So Mahalakshmi is Magalakshmi. This is a Tamilian enough name so it sounds nice. But when Zahera (ZAAhayRaa) changes to Jageera or Jagara, I draw the line :-D

As an aside, I realised that lately I have been giving very corny titles to my posts - Moving Movies, Post Mortem, Castles in the air! and whats in a name :-D Kya karen mamu, bheja chutti pe gayela hai and waise bhi creativity thodi apun k reach k baahar hai :-D

Anyway, another fantasy series I discovered is Septimus Heap by Angie Sage. The first part is called Magyk, and next one lined up is Flyte. It is an interesting read. Good timepass.