Paper short abstract:

A Sindhi/ Marathi bride in India is ritually married to a groom and as part of the rituals her first name is replaced by a new name by the groom- changing her first, middle and last names. I explore what it means to be named from the experiences of women in a heteronormative gender context.

Paper long abstract:

The question that I intend to deal with in this paper is to understand what it means to be named by someone. As argued by Lambek (2006), our names are largely bestowed upon us by others and that they say something about the name-giver. In this paper, I try to capture this moment of bestowal and what it does or does not do to the one named. I raise this in the context of the first name change practice of women at marriage amongst the Sindhis and Marathi Brahmins, where the groom re-names his bride as part of the marriage rituals. The name, then is legally recognised and the bride is thereby known as her new name, leaving behind her old name and perhaps a part of her older self. I zoom in in this moment and draw from my ethnography with the two communities in Vadodara to navigate through the name narratives of these women. From the choice of a new name by her husband, to her consent (or absence of that) to it, these narratives are rich in their complexities and indicate the various manifestations of gender power relations in an aspect as everyday as names. Names here not only behave as portals to enter a new phase for women but also as words loaded with expectations and frameworks on which she must stand tall. My aim then is to materialise these stories on paper and bring forth names (dis)continued, and yet dear to my participants.