Use of nicknames
The letter from one of your readers on July 31 is spot on and quite relevant in our global village. In Bangladesh nicknames are fashionably added at the end of a person's name quite regularly. This would not matter if such persons were confined to their native places, as local customs would clarify what is the real name and what is the nickname. But with prosperity most people travel abroad nowadays for business, for jobs, for education, etc and there the problem of family name or last name arises. In all European countries and other places where European civilisation prevails by descent, last name of a person is his/her family name, for example- Smith, Blair, Brown, Sarkozy, Merkel, Putin, etc., showing a family connection by which name his/ her ancestry and their movements can be traced over hundreds of years.
Adding the nickname as the last name makes it not the nickname but the family name in the wider world, without any family connection whatsoever, and it is this name which takes precedence over others. For instance, if someone's Bengali name is Syed Muhammad Ismail Badal, he will inevitably be addressed by most people as Mr Badal abroad and his real family name Syed will lose all significance. This is a great loss and the only efficacious remedy is not to give a nickname to a child. Muslims of other countries do not have any nicknames to my knowledge, and this was also the practice of Indian and Bengali Muslims during the time of our grandfathers (about 90 years ago). Nicknames are widely practised by Hindus within the close family circles only, and is not appended in any official document for recognition by the general public.
Life is also so much easier without an official nickname tagged on when one is filling up so many forms nowadays!
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