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Named After Typo

I woman of my acquaintance has a son she has named Alvil. Not being familiar with the name, I asked her what it meant. There was a certain pharmaceutical ring to it to my ears at least. She told me it meant "bravery and valor" but was not sure of the exact etymology or even the language.

"So how did you find the name" I asked her. "On the internet" she replied. This woman is hardly the most net savvy person I know, but doing a Google search on "boys names" is a no-brainer. I am sure she gets strange looks from people when they hear her son's rather unusual name. To a lot of people like her the internet's veracity is a foregone conclusion. They don't feel the need to verify or corroborate.

I hope for her sake and the boy's that someone was not exercising their right to be an idiot when they wrote up a post about Alvil and that it is a real and meaningful name.

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Anonymous said…
Hi there,

Came across ur blog yesterday and haven't been able to do anything useful since. After reading a few posts, I decided to start from the start. If you have some tracking widget installed, just wanted to assure you, I am not here to stalk you. I am just a regular sub urban desi mom of a 3 year old. I am wasting my life working in analytics too :-)
Your posts have this ability to make someone want to know you better..I am just catching up with the past ones, once that is done I won't come across as a stalker.

Take care
5:34 PM
Anonymous said…
What made me comment on this particular post was to tell u that I know a girl of desi origin who has named her son Avkash (means holiday in hindi). She says, it means 'without an end' but I always wonder if Aakash was the word she was looking for.
5:39 PM
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