About My Name

In the mathematics community I am Deep H. Makadiya, which follows the familiar pattern of a first name, a middle initial and a surname. On official documents, however, I am Makadiya Deepkumar Hasamukhbhai.

It is the same person and, essentially, the same three names, only arranged differently and with a little more attached to them.

If you have ever wondered why I have two versions of my name, how to pronounce them, or what they mean, this is the story.

One Name, Three Orders

A traditional Gujarati name has three parts, and on many official documents they are written surname first:

In English letters, Makadiya has no single fixed spelling. I write it with a y, Makadiya, while my brother, for example, writes Makadia. Both spellings are in use, and in Gujarati they stand for the same surname and the same pronunciation. For my academic work, however, I always use Makadiya.

The suffix -kumar is commonly added to male given names in Gujarat. In my case it is added to Deep, giving Deepkumar.

The third part is usually the one that surprises people. It is not quite a middle name in the Western sense. Hasamukh is my father’s name, and -bhai is a respectful form of address common in Gujarat. Bhai literally means “brother”, but in everyday Gujarati it is added to a man’s name as a mark of respect.

If I rearrange the same three parts into the usual Western order, I get:

For everyday and academic use, I shorten this further to the name I normally go by: my given name without the -kumar suffix, followed by my father’s name reduced to an initial, and then my surname.

Three arrangements of the same name, and depending on where you meet me, any one of them may appear on a form, a certificate or a paper.

In Its Own Scripts

Gujarati is my mother tongue, so the first line is where my name truly belongs. The second is written in Devanagari, the script used for Hindi, Sanskrit, and several other Indian languages, which represents the name with almost the same sounds. Both lines are pronounced in exactly the same way.

How to Say It

Here is my best attempt at writing the pronunciation in a way that is friendly to English speakers. Each name is split into its syllables, with the Gujarati letters above and an English spelling below:

The pronunciation is easier to hear than to explain in English spelling, because a few Gujarati sounds have no exact English equivalent. Three are worth listening for:

ḍ

The ḍ in Makadiya is a quick retroflex sound, much like ड़ in Hindi; to an English speaker it may sound somewhere between a d and an r.

kh · bh

The kh in Hasamukh and the bh in ‑bhai are aspirated: roughly a k and a b followed by a small puff of air.

aa · ee

Gujarati does not use stress quite the way English does, so the safest approach is simply to pronounce each syllable clearly and give the long vowels their full length.

What It Means

Deepkumar

Deep (દીપ, दीप) comes from the Sanskrit dīpa, meaning “lamp” or “light”. It brings to mind the diya, the small oil lamp traditionally lit during festivals and especially associated with Diwali. In fact, the name Diwali comes from the Sanskrit Deepavali, “a row of lamps”.

The ending -kumar means “boy”, “young man” or “prince”, and is a common element in male names in many parts of India, including Gujarat.

So on paper I am Deepkumar. Almost everywhere else, I am simply Deep.

Hasamukhbhai

Hasamukh, my father’s name, has a rather cheerful meaning: “smiling face”. The Gujarati hasvũ means “to laugh”, and mukh means “face”. Add the respectful -bhai and you get Hasamukhbhai.

So there is, quite literally, a smile hidden in my full name.

Makadiya

Makadiya is a surname associated with the (Kadva) Patel community. Historically, many Patel families in Gujarat were engaged in agriculture and farming.

For more information about the Patel community, you can visit this page.

In Print

All of my mathematical work, papers and preprints alike, carries one name: Deep H. Makadiya. In a reference list it appears as Makadiya, D. H. If you are searching for my work, spell the surname Makadiya, with a y.