In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri provides an account of the Ganguli family, an Indian American family of educated, middle-class Bengali immigrants. Torn between two cultures and two worlds, the GanguliÆs live in Suburban Massachusetts. Ashoke and Ashimi Ganguli have two children, Gogol and Sonia. The caste system in India impacts the lives of Ashoke and Ashimi, whose marriage is arranged, but in suburban Massachusetts such distinctions are undermined through the common ties of class and ethnicity. Nonetheless, for Gogol Ganguli, born in Massachusetts, reconciling his ethnic background with American culture presents a crisis of identity. Named after a Russian author, Gogol will become ôNikhilö in an attempt to forge an identity that is distinct from his ethnicity and distinctly his own. In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri argues that naming is often a limiting process by showing how GogolÆs effort to rename himself is an effort to resist the confining limitations of naming.
The issue of naming is a pervasive theme throughout The Namesake. Naming in Indian culture involves several names that have distinct significance. Bengalis often provide two names to their children, one is a pet name and one is a good name. As Lahiri (25-6) writes, ôBengali nomenclature grants, to every single person, two names. In Bengali, the word for pet name is daknam, meaning, literally, the name by which one is called by friends, family, and other intimates, at home and in other private, unguarded moments.ö The other type of name is known as bhalonam or a ôgood nameö (Lahiri 26). This duality in naming both reveals and conceals identity. We see that each name connotes different ideas and values to the named, while the formal name provides a definitive denotation or meaning. Pet names are considered for intimate use, without aspiring to any form of lofty pretensions or signifiers. However, bhalonam often reveal aspects of identity or charact...