A quick glance down the names of the Sri Lankan cricket team would show that it’s not uncommon for Sri Lankans to have 6 or 7 names. That’s not because there are so many of us that we need 7 names to come up with a unique identifier, but because Sri Lankan parents, grandparent and interfering aunts can’t agree on a single name.
I have four names; and that’s without including my clan name Bodiyabaduge. The ‘ge’ at the end of Bodiyabaduge means ‘the house of’ or ‘belonging to’. Several generations ago, my ancestors, wanting to sound like their colonisers, dropped the name. After all, none of the British could pronounce Bodiyabaduge in a single breath. So instead my last name is Perera. It means Pear tree in Portuguese. It was the Portuguese priests who, 400 years ago, insisted on assigning a Portuguese name to Lankans who abandoned their faith to seek baptism into the catholic religion. I suspect my ancestors adopted the faith not out of conviction but because it opened doors to education in the western culture. As serfs, foot soldiers and petty administrators, they assisted their Portuguese overlords to destroy our 2000-year-old civilisation, religion and way of life. Nowadays, in the post independence era, names like de Silva, Fernando, Salgado, Perera maybe viewed by some as badges of shame, revealing our ancestor’s betrayals.
My first name is Amindra, a tricksy, ambiguous name, for it means ‘possessing un-countable friends’. I’d like to think it means I have so many friends that they are numberless. But it could also be interpreted, in the original Sanskrit, to mean I have no friends and therefore they can’t be counted.
Joseph is my baptismal name and I did attend St Joseph’s College. But to my child’s mind, Joseph, who provided a home for Mary and Jesus, seemed rather boring. He wasn’t like Peter, who with his sword cut off the ear of Malcus, the high priest’s servant and then requested Nero to crucify him upside down. Or George, who rode a horse to spear the dragon. Or Sebastian, whose statues show him shot full of arrows. Instead, I was to be just an ordinary Joe.
I am generally known by my third name Roshan, a soft, dull name I disliked as a child. Much later, in England, a Persian told me it means Light. Light is a common name in different languages eg Nora, Lucien, Clara etc. Light is a symbol for Truth. Someone who sheds light, someone who stands up for Truth. Now that is something I could live with.
roshanperera.co.uk 