Timur got his name in an unusual manner. He was born 25th Shaban A.H. 736 (7th May A.D. 1336), at a small village 40 miles to the south of Samarcand in Kesh, a province of Independent Tartary. He says that his father related to him the following circumstances connected with his name. `Soon after your birth, I took your virtuous mother to pay our respects to the cele brated saint, Shaikh Shams-ud-Din. When we entered his apartment he was reading aloud the 67th chapter of the Koran, and was repeating this verse, " Are you sure that He who dwelleth in heaven will not cause the earth to swallow you up, and behold it shall shake (tamurii)." The Shaikh then stopped, and said, We have named your son Timur.' There is a legend that his mother was with child before her marriage, and that she said to her father that while she was lying on her couch, a sunbeam covered her with a mantle of light, and at the same time seemed affectionately to caress her.
Amongst the servant and haram women of the Muhammadans, the usual names relate to some personal or mental peculiarity, as Jatnila, Kali, Nek-Kadam, Rabat Afza, Dii Aram ; or the name of some flower is given, as Chambeli, Nargis, Gulab, Yasmin.
Names of Hindus of the present day in the south of India are often those .of some deity, of some beast, of some devout man, or relate to the complexion. Those of their wives are of some goddess, or of some flowering plant.
Amongst the Hindus of Madras, names common to men and women are Adakalam, Arokeum, Chintadri, Chittaray, Kasi, Kuppu, Manikum, Parenjody, Pollyam, Ruthnum; Tulsi, Tunyasam. Many of the Hindu men's names are those of Hindu deities, as Rama, Kistna, Hangs, Narain, with the added title Swami.
Muhammadan ladies have evinced a wish to associate their names with inhabited places, and there is many a Begum Pet in India. The names also of distinguished officers of the Indian Govern ment have been given to towns and hamlets. Malcolm Pet, a small village on the Mahabales war Hills, recalls the Sir John Malcolm who was Governor of Bombay in 1828. Another Pet or Petta or town is named in Mysore after Mr. L. B. Bowring, a former Chief Commissioner. Colonel Dalton, almost a model commissioner amongst wild tribes, gave his name to the headquarters of Palamau, a subdivision in the chief district of the S.W. Agency. • Sir Herbert Edwares, as well as
that of the heir of Ranjit Singh, survive in the district of Bannu, at a place known variously as Edwardesabad and Dhulip-nagar. The fort there is associated with the maharaja, and the bazar with the accomplished who could win a battle with raw levies, write a good despatch, and sketch an oriental landscape. The market-place at Etah, N.W. Provinces, com memorates the name and services of Mr. F. 0. Mayne. The first Political Agent in Coorg changed the name of a place from Kushalnagara • to Fraser Pet. Some enterprising gentlemen, named the four Morell brothers, converted a jungly tract on the edge of the Sunderbaus into a rice-growing plain, dotted with thriving villages, on the bank of a noble river, and the port is now known, locally and officially, as 3lorellganj. Sir R. Montgomery, Lieutenant - Governor of the Panjab and a member of the Indian Council, has a district named after him, with ifs administrative headquarters. It is usual with Muhammadans to apply some rhyming alliteration to their famous cities, and they add the words Dar-ul-Karar to Kandahar, and Farkhunda banyad to Hyderabad.
A tribe in India give daily names. If born on Sunday, the child is called Adya ; on Monday, Somburu ; on Tuesday, Mangada ; on Wednesday, 1 Buda; on Thursday, Lakya ' • on Friday, Sukku ; and on Saturday, Sanya. These names of the days of the week are the same as those among the Telugu and Uriya people,—Telugu Adivaram, Somavaram, Mangalavaram, Buduvaram, Laks manavaram, Sukravaram, and Sanivaram. Hindu women will not pronounce their husband's names, and a Muhammadan will not summon his wife by her name. The Japanese wife calls her hus band Tei-shiu (Tei-shi), meaning master.
In Behar, amongst all castes of Hindus, when a man's elder children die, he gives to subsequent offspring names signifying something unpleasant, and bores the septa of their noses.
In Sumatra, the father in many parts of the country, particularly in Passumma, is distinguished by the name of his first child, as Pa-Ladin, Pa Rindu (Pa forbapoa, signifying the father of), and loses, in this acquired, his own proper name. They have adopted this from the Arabs, who speak of a man and wife as the father and mother. —Dowson's Ancient India; Elphinstone's History of India ; Captain Temple.