Melleny

[bpj at netg.se]

At 16:36 14.4.1997 +0100, Allen Thrasher wrote:
>Re St. Napoleon:
>
>There is one, though I am doing reference duty at the Asian RR desk and
>can't check Butler's Lives of the Saints.  How do you think Buonaparte got
>his Christian name?  Napoleon the Emperor encouraged the spread of the
>cult of Napoleon the Saint, without much permanent success, obviously.

Not surprising, but the emperor has effectively eclipsed the saint as
"owner" of the name.

>I asked my late colleague Dr. Sam Iftikhar, a Pakistani (Punjabi)
>Christian (Presbyterian), once, why S. Asian Christians sometimes had for
>personal names English family names.  He said they were the names of
>specially respected missionaries.  Which implies that it was not thought
>that every European name and only European names were suitable for
>Christians.
>
>My impression is that S. Asian Christian females are more likely to have
>'Indian' (large scare quotes) names in addition to or instead of a saint's
>name than males.


I read once that while Sikh males always have typical Sikh names, that is
not always so with women, since "Hindu" (VERY big scare-quotes!!) girls'
names are perceived as more "feminine". Is anyone of you able to
confirm/refute this? It's interesting because many European languages also
seem to be more open to foreign female names than to foreign male names.

BPJ


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