Hooo that's a weird name.. What does it mean???

That's what people keep asking me all the time when I introduce myself and invariably everyone needed a second chance to get my name right. So there you go, my name is 'Aloysius Wilfred Raj' and thanks to the Indian Passport office at Chennai for lengthening my already lengthy name by adding my father's name as my surname. To all who don't know, in south India it's a bit rare to find people with surnames.  So my name is officially, 'Aloysius Wilfred Raj Arokiaraj'. My uniqueness starts with my name. I started to learn my name when I was fairly young, there started my training for tongue twisters. 

People used to call me using all sorts of names starting from Alexander (I know its heights of mistaken identity but can't help) to Alshaeish (like one in Alsatian). But as a kid that never really got on my nerves. Once in my middle school, I asked my mom why exactly she chose this name. She had a very plain answer; she wanted to name me Aloysius because it started with an 'A' and it was rare to find someone with that name. Then St. Wilfred's feast falls on my Birthday and Raj comes in my Family (not like a family name but just because every guy from my grandfather had it in the last two generations so it was just added as a free entity).

When I started to get hold of a proper pronunciation for my name somewhere in middle school, I started to correct everyone who called me the wrong way. Of course, I had too many nick names from rubber mouth to Palaravaayan (Name which became famous for me during my 12th grade) literally meaning continuous flow of words like milk. There would not have been so many nick names, if my name was a bit easier to call. To be honest, I was one of the most talkative a teacher would ever find in his or her career. Coming to how I love myself to be called, "Aa-loy-she-S". But 90% of the time I have been unsuccessful in hearing it that way. Many of my friends even started calling me 'Wilfred' and 'Raj'.

One great problem I have been facing with having this name is when people attend calls. My sister calls me 'Alo', I have got used to being called so. I really get embarrassed when people attend calls from silent mode saying a hello and I respond to them. I had been always thinking that Aloysius was tough only for people in India but I was wrong. When interacting with people of other countries, I found out only the British were convenient with my name while everyone else had to train themselves to call me correctly but most just gave up. 

A few people had actually asked me what my name meant, I just went around telling them that it’s just another name or name of a great saint, the patron of young students. One fine day I asked this question myself and considering the fact that I had nothing to do I went on a search. I had a hard time hunting things down but found success. Aloysius is a very rare name which is the Latinisation of the English name 'Louis' having German origin meaning "fame and war". The fact was having interacted with a lot of Germans, they were the ones who found it most tough and gave much weird pronunciations which I totally disliked. But, having such a meaning in your name gives you unexplainable amount of valour. Making things more interesting was the second part of my name, Wilfred which is also of Germanic origin meaning “will" and "peace". Raj literally means King, ha ha so I have a name which has so much to do with Bravery, Will, Peace and Power. So do I need anything less to look up to than just be proud of my name and living my name? How much every people murder my name and make fun I am still the same old Aloysius Wilfred Raj. I guess only my friends should say if I have been any better...   

This blog was just to try my hand at writing. I thought writing about me is the best thing because there is nothing on the planet I know better. And sorry if there is something which hurts or is grammatically horrible.