‘Hey Chavanni come here’, the main character in a Television serial commandeered an eight-year-old girl. (Chavanni used to be a small round coin, equivalent to a quarter of an Indian rupee, till it was withdrawn some years back.)

The little girl was plump and had a round face, a larger version of the small, round-shaped coin. Maybe, this similarity prompted the character to address her as Chavanni. Coincidentally, the family also addressed the girl very appropriately as Nannhi (the little one).

The actor addressed her as Chavanni in zest — and it evoked laughter among the viewers. That was not all. Chavanni, alias Nannhi, had a third name also — the official one for the school register. So, at eight, the little girl was given three names.

This multiplicity of names, as shown in the TV serial, only mirrored an age-old tradition in the Indian society of having one or more pet names. Interestingly, coins provided the easiest way to choose an alias, at least in the lower and lower middle class families.

Decades back, I came across one such family where the illiterate mother-in-law found it hard to pronounce the name of her daughter-in-law. So, she declared she would call her Rupaiyya (Rupee). It goes without saying that when the second son got married, his bride was nicknamed Athanni (a half-rupee coin) even though her name was not that difficult to pronounce.

I am not aware if daughters-in-law Rupaiyya and Athanni giving birth to Chavannis, Dawannis (two anna coin), Ekannis (one anna) and Adhannas (half anna).

With conservative homes opening up to new trends and thinking, albeit slowly, a new variety of pet names started surfacing. Having mass appeal, they became so common that sometimes you find more than two persons with the same nicknames standing before you.

In Punjabi-speaking regions, one can find plenty of persons with aliases like Bunty, Jolly, Sonu, Sony and Sunny (they are not satisfied with one ‘n’ in the last name). Lucky is another popular pet name given by parents in the hope that their son would bring luck to the family. Most people pronounce it as “Luckky” to lend more emphasis to it. It is another thing that not all boys prove worthy of the name.

Gold, that fascinates everybody, women in particular, motivates mums to name their kids as Goldie in the pious hope that they would shine like gold in life. Ironically, some families give the same name also to their pet dogs or cats having a golden coat. The commonality must be ensuring perfect bonding between them.

Pet names have their own charm and romanticism. In a large family in Bareilly, all the cousin brothers and sisters bore nicknames which, if taken in one breath, would sound like a nursery rhyme.

Sample these: Munna, Munni, Mannu, Munia, Munua, Munnoo, Munmun, Kunkun, Chunchun. Three of their elders were known as Babboo, Pippi, Dundun. Identifying the youngsters by their aliases quickly was a stupendous task even for their close relatives.

Elsewhere, we find Bebo, Babbu, Baby, Babu, Bibbo, Bibbi. Interestingly, Babboo in Bareilly remained Babboo (child) for even his great grandchildren till his demise. And in Allahabad, one of my cousin sisters, a grandmother, continues to be “Baby” even as she fondles her baby grandsons today.

Likewise, we have plenty of Doll, Dolly, Bachcha, Bachchi, Guddan, Guddi, Chhutku, Chhutki, Golu, Koili. But one alias that I came across was quite stunning — Hitler. I can vouch for the person that he did not betray any trait of the dictator. His only fault was that he was born during the Second World War when Hitler was in the news and his father innocently gave him the nickname.

In most cases, pet names are coined after culling the official name, like we have “Yuvi” derived from Yuvraj Singh, the cricketer, and Harbhajan Singh reduced to “Bhajji”.

We must recognise the fact that we live in this materialistic world. So, it was not surprising that until a few decades back, we had some popular pet names like Asharfi (a pure gold coin of yesteryears) and Daulat (wealth).

In India, Asharfi is now a thing of the past. It exists only in Arabian tales.

Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.