KLK aint only about the local scene. We do offshore peninsular reporting too. Check this out from the motherland:
“What’s in a name?” said Shakespeare. A lot would be the answer of several folks in filmdom. Cinema creates magic in the minds of the audience by making them stay glued to the happenings on the screen. Away from the arc lights, the stars enjoy immense popularity thanks to their screen magic. Everything about them is hyped up and presented in a glamorous fashion. It is quite understandable that the stars crave for and enjoy the adulation as far as it goes. Their shelf life is quite short and therefore they seek maximum mileage in the minimum duration. It is also a vindication of the grind that they have to pass through to become popular.
The most important thing about a person is of course his or her name. If you have a plain sounding name, you cannot hope to be remembered by many. In an industry which thrives on networking and word-of-mouth promotion, you cannot reach far, if people who matter have to jog their memory to get your name. Competition in cinema demands that you package yourself attractively to grab public attention. For some others there are sentimental reasons too. The most important instance of a name change becoming the raison d’etre for enduring popularity is of course that of Shivaji Rao Gaekwad aka Rajinikanth.
The superstar was a lanky, self-conscious fresher from the Film Institute, when Iyakkunar Sigaram took him under his wings. He christened him Rajinikanth taken from Sivaji Ganesan’s popular character Barrister Rajinikanth from the film Gauravam. It was a period of great social churning in Tamilnadu and this name reflected a unique personality without overtones of caste, creed and social status. Similarly, a couple of years after Rajinikanth, a young man called Paalpandi wanted to make it big in films. He called himself Bharathraja after the great poet probably owing to the poetic frames he created in his romantic fantasies. Rasaiah had the burning desire to make his music heard all over the world and he was sure that if he had to make it in films, he had to have a unique name.
Thus was born Ilayaraja. Sometime ago, there was a huge popularity for names prefixed or suffixed with Sri and Jaya… Vanisri, Sridevi, Jayalalitha, Jayasudha, Jayachitra and so on. Director Bharathiraja has a penchant for naming his heroines with R…Radhika, Radha, Revathi, Ranjitha. This was supposed to bring good luck. Two important exceptions were of course, Sridevi and Sukanya. Now the trend is to choose names with a twirl or tang with a dash of Oriental mystique….Maalavika, Sruthika, Sridevika, Jyothika, Asin, Trisha….. In the case of Dilip Kumar, the name change is because of conversion to another religion. Dilip Kumar is today A R Rahman.
Some guys change names merely because there is someone else already with that name. Suhasini is a senior actress and so the other one changed her name to Sneha. Similarly, the other Revathi got a new name as Sandhya of Kadhal fame. There are two Kumaresans and so one became Ramarajan while the other became Napoleon. Stars take extreme care in choosing their names because they believe that their fortune depends on it. They consult astrologers and numerologists to get the correct combination of syllables. Film folks, may their tribe increase and give us many more ideas for names for newborns!
Here is a list of popular stars and their (actual) names.
“What’s in a name?” said Shakespeare. A lot would be the answer of several folks in filmdom. Cinema creates magic in the minds of the audience by making them stay glued to the happenings on the screen. Away from the arc lights, the stars enjoy immense popularity thanks to their screen magic. Everything about them is hyped up and presented in a glamorous fashion. It is quite understandable that the stars crave for and enjoy the adulation as far as it goes. Their shelf life is quite short and therefore they seek maximum mileage in the minimum duration. It is also a vindication of the grind that they have to pass through to become popular.
The most important thing about a person is of course his or her name. If you have a plain sounding name, you cannot hope to be remembered by many. In an industry which thrives on networking and word-of-mouth promotion, you cannot reach far, if people who matter have to jog their memory to get your name. Competition in cinema demands that you package yourself attractively to grab public attention. For some others there are sentimental reasons too. The most important instance of a name change becoming the raison d’etre for enduring popularity is of course that of Shivaji Rao Gaekwad aka Rajinikanth.
The superstar was a lanky, self-conscious fresher from the Film Institute, when Iyakkunar Sigaram took him under his wings. He christened him Rajinikanth taken from Sivaji Ganesan’s popular character Barrister Rajinikanth from the film Gauravam. It was a period of great social churning in Tamilnadu and this name reflected a unique personality without overtones of caste, creed and social status. Similarly, a couple of years after Rajinikanth, a young man called Paalpandi wanted to make it big in films. He called himself Bharathraja after the great poet probably owing to the poetic frames he created in his romantic fantasies. Rasaiah had the burning desire to make his music heard all over the world and he was sure that if he had to make it in films, he had to have a unique name.
Thus was born Ilayaraja. Sometime ago, there was a huge popularity for names prefixed or suffixed with Sri and Jaya… Vanisri, Sridevi, Jayalalitha, Jayasudha, Jayachitra and so on. Director Bharathiraja has a penchant for naming his heroines with R…Radhika, Radha, Revathi, Ranjitha. This was supposed to bring good luck. Two important exceptions were of course, Sridevi and Sukanya. Now the trend is to choose names with a twirl or tang with a dash of Oriental mystique….Maalavika, Sruthika, Sridevika, Jyothika, Asin, Trisha….. In the case of Dilip Kumar, the name change is because of conversion to another religion. Dilip Kumar is today A R Rahman.
Some guys change names merely because there is someone else already with that name. Suhasini is a senior actress and so the other one changed her name to Sneha. Similarly, the other Revathi got a new name as Sandhya of Kadhal fame. There are two Kumaresans and so one became Ramarajan while the other became Napoleon. Stars take extreme care in choosing their names because they believe that their fortune depends on it. They consult astrologers and numerologists to get the correct combination of syllables. Film folks, may their tribe increase and give us many more ideas for names for newborns!
Here is a list of popular stars and their (actual) names.
Now - Then
Asin - Mary
Meera - Jasmine Jasmine Joseph
Sandhya - Revathi
Sneha - Suhasini
Simran - Rishi Bala
Nayantara - Diana Mariam
Kushboo - Nakkath
Mumtaz - Nagma Khan
Nandana - Aswathi
Kausalya - Nandini
Maalavika - Swetha Konnur
Rajinikanth - Sivaji Rao
Parthiban - Moorthy
Vijayakanth - Vijayaraj
Director Dharani - Ramani
Charan - Saravanan
Vikraman - Subramanian
Thangar Bacchan - Thangaraj
Pooja - Uma Sankari
Abirami - Divya Gopikumar
Geethu Mohandas - Gayathri
Sada - Sadaf Syed
Soundharya - Saumya
Trisha - Trisha Krishnan
Namitha - Bhairavi
Agathiyan - Karunanidhi
Bharathiraja - Chinna Sami (alias) Paal Pandi
Ramarajan - Kumaresan
Vivek - Vivekanandan
Napoleon - Kumaresan
Sathyaraj - Rangaraj
Karthik - Murali
Vikram - John Kennedy
Dhanush - Venkat Prabhu
Surya - Saravanan
Vijay - Joseph Vijay
Ilayaraja - Rasaiah
A R Rahman - Dileep Kumar
Sunil - Narain
Silambarasan - Simbu
Asin - Mary
Meera - Jasmine Jasmine Joseph
Sandhya - Revathi
Sneha - Suhasini
Simran - Rishi Bala
Nayantara - Diana Mariam
Kushboo - Nakkath
Mumtaz - Nagma Khan
Nandana - Aswathi
Kausalya - Nandini
Maalavika - Swetha Konnur
Rajinikanth - Sivaji Rao
Parthiban - Moorthy
Vijayakanth - Vijayaraj
Director Dharani - Ramani
Charan - Saravanan
Vikraman - Subramanian
Thangar Bacchan - Thangaraj
Pooja - Uma Sankari
Abirami - Divya Gopikumar
Geethu Mohandas - Gayathri
Sada - Sadaf Syed
Soundharya - Saumya
Trisha - Trisha Krishnan
Namitha - Bhairavi
Agathiyan - Karunanidhi
Bharathiraja - Chinna Sami (alias) Paal Pandi
Ramarajan - Kumaresan
Vivek - Vivekanandan
Napoleon - Kumaresan
Sathyaraj - Rangaraj
Karthik - Murali
Vikram - John Kennedy
Dhanush - Venkat Prabhu
Surya - Saravanan
Vijay - Joseph Vijay
Ilayaraja - Rasaiah
A R Rahman - Dileep Kumar
Sunil - Narain
Silambarasan - Simbu
2 comments:
great post
well done
Would you like to credit this post to the original source?
:-)
Good work with placing it here though.
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