Genealogy Books - Penguin Book of Hindu Names Reprint

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Very Complete Book of Hindu Names
Comment: This book is an outstanding treasure.

If you want to learn about names and their true
meaning, or perhaps you have chosen a possible name from Gita or Vedas and you want confirmation of
the meaning, then this book is the greatest guide possible. It is the most complete book I have ever
seen of Hindu names.

Don't be scared by traditional romanization of Sanskrit; it is not
hard to learn. It only takes a few minutes of effort and then you can read other Sanskrit texts such
as Gita in roman characters, which can be useful from time to time even if you can read Sanskrit.

Names can always be shortened or altered to suit personal tastes. But
the
beautiful meaning of a well-chosen Hindu name is irreplaceable. It is a source of strength that you
carry with you all your life.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Horrible book
Comment: Unless you are looking for an encyclopedia of all hindu names don't bother with this book. The book
mentions names with negative aspects too. I can never imagine who would want to have a name like
"Asura" which roughly means a bad giant. It's headache to go through the book to find decent names.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great book, if you're willing to work at it
Comment: Many of the critiques about this book are unfair given that it is a scholarly work, not really a
baby name book. However, many, like myself, will buy it for the latter purpose. You cannot find a
more complete book of Hindu names anywhere else, including the Internet. Additionally, there are
pronunciations included which are very helpful to someone not living in India. As long as you are
willing to work to find a good name, this book is an excellent resource.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Usefull but time consuming
Comment: Well, I guess I would agree to most of the reviews so far that this book is not listed by gender, a
lot of names are those you wouldprobably never name your baby and so on. BUT the important thing is
it this book is unique and if you take the time and effort to find a name that you like then it is
worth the effort. Afterall you are interested in all but ONE name for the baby.
PS: This book
wont help if you are looking to name twins!!!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great collection of names; but poor book for baby names
Comment: This is a great piece of scholarly work -- a vast compilation of Hindu names. But if you're looking
for a source of unique baby names, this book will frustrate you a lot.

Other reviewers have
already highlighted the user un-friendliness of the book ... small font, mixing of gender, confusing
Sanskrit classical spelling -- with all of which I agree. So I'll elaborate on the names
themselves.

After going through more than 20,000 names in this book, I doubt if you will 'yield'
more than 50 names of either gender that would serve as unique names for your baby. The book gives
no consideration to whether the name is for a human, whether it is acceptable, and whether it is
pronounceable. For example, who in the right mind would name their son Sadaparibhuta (always in
fear), or their daughter Dakini (a witch)?! And would you really want a long name like
Mahasahasrapramardini?! The book is filled with such mythological names, so the acceptable ones are
needles in the haystack.

However, to be fair to Maneka Gandhi, she has never touted this as a
source of names for your baby. Her introduction does make it clear that she just intended this to be
a work of scholarship. It is the readers who are construing this to be a book of baby names.

Moreover, I doubt if there is a more complete compilation of Hindu names around, than this one.
If you have the patience (and you'll need lots of it, especially if you don't know your baby's
gender!) this is a good book to go through. We did, and found a nice unique name for our little one.

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