Names

I was at the kids athletics heats on Saturday, waiting for Asha to finish her long-jumping (she wasn't chosen for the next level).

Enoch was playing with his friend Atharva when I heard a parent calling their child: "Stalin, Stalin, come here Stalin."

I could hardly believe my ears. Someone in the last 6 years naming their child after a genoicidical killer?

What power parents have when they choose names for kids. How amazing to have a name. To be given a title that is used to call you. That you will hear from a loved one as a term of endearment. A name which you write to identify your presence through a signature, a word that you tell others to represent who you are to them.

Its no surprise that the value of names was treasured in times gone by - and perhaps a picture of our current callousness when we see how flippant so many names are given (or perhaps we have always had the shallow very close to the surface across our cultures).

Asha and Enoch are blessed with a bounty of names.

Besides the 'hope' that Asha's name means in Hindi, she has a second name of 'Esther' - after the brave Jewish queen in the Persian Empire (Esther means star) and a third name of 'Alice' (from Old German for 'noble, exalted). The first name was given by me, the second by Sheba and the third by her uncle Stefan to remember our wonderfully kind and serving grandmother Alice Cravath Eicher.

Enoch has been given his name because it means 'dedicated' - and of course because his namesake 'walked with God.' Sheba gave him his first, and I gave him the second. His next name Anand means joy in Hindi, and his third name - Graceson was coined by his Aunt Daisy. It means just what it says - son of grace.

Finally, our kids inherit the name 'Eicher' from us.