Riyaa Indrawati Shrivastava (aka Naina)

Growing up as the child of migrants in Australia meant lots of things in the 80's. The one thing that has stuck is that mostly no one can pronounce my name correctly.

When we knew that a baby was on the way, we started thinking of names. And ease of pronunciation was high on that list, but classically beautiful was a big thing as well.

It is quite complicated and still does my head in. But here goes.

Indian babies have an astrological name based on the cycles of the moon. [The Nakshatra]. This is a different concept to an astrological chart which is based on the positions of the planets and sun. The nakshatra is the lunar position against the fixed stars, at a certain time in the morning of each day.

So in essence, a baby's astrological name comes from the Nakshatra. Naina, by arriving on 20 April 2008 at 1140pm, was born in to the house Swati (pronouced Swa-thee) [Wiki informs me that it is the equivalent to the constellation Arcturus for those of you astronomically minded]. As per our family's astrologer in Varanasi, he advised that the astrological name for a child born in Swati should start with the letters T or R. So after some discussion, we came up with Riyaa. Riyaa is not a particularly meaningful name, with some urdu and sanskrit etymology but nothing too meaningful.

Indrawati is a very old Indian name, meaning Indra's wife (ancient Indian King of the Gods). More importantly to me, it was my dad's mother's name. I don't remember meeting her, as she died in 1975 when I was 1 and a half years old. But I have always loved that name and wanted to keep her name in my own little girl.

And finally Naina. Naina is a great little name. Catchy, easy for all comers to pronounce. Well, to pronounce, it is Nay-na. Naina is the name of a movie ( a horror flick about a girl who gets a corneal transplant and can see what the last owner of the corneas saw), lots of songs (do an i-tunes search), and the original meaning, eyes.

However, there is a more mythological meaning behind the names. It is also the name of Devi (worshipped as Parvati, Shiva's consort/wife).

When Lord Shiva (the lord of creation and destruction) left the earth, his wife, Parvati (the daughter of the Himalayas), out of devotion, threw herself on his funeral pyre and committed sati. Shiva came to carry her away and as he did, her eyes (Nain) fell and became a lake, Nainital (Nain = eyes, Tal = lake) in Himalayan India and one of the most important sites for hindus in our worship of Devi.

Thanks to Mum and Wikipedia for filling in gaps in my knowledge.