#hshqtask032

ÉLOÏSE,     (  french  )   “healthy, wide”

éloïse wasn’t officially named until a week after her birth. since her diagnosis had come so suddenly after her birth, and surgery was underwent right away, her parents had too much on their mind to decide on a name. after she recovered from her first surgery did albert and anne decide to name her “éloïse” in hope that the name could help her grow healthy. 

WILHELMINA,     (  dutch & german  )   “willing to protect”

named after her paternal grandmother who she is extremely close to.

also quite in-character as éloïse is a passionately loyal person, especially when it comes to her family, and is willing to do anything to protect them.

VIVIENNE,     (  french  )   “life, lively”

another name made in hope that she would live a long, healthy life.

her father personally chose this name.

ALBERTINE,     (  german, french  )   “noble, bright”

feminine form of albert, her father’s name.

old german derivative of athala (adal) “noble” and berhta (berht) “bright”

her mother personally chose this name after seeing how fiercely albert had fought to get the best doctors to save his daughter at her birth.

de SAXE-COBOURG et GOTHA,     (  german  )   

the reigning royal house of belgium.

bonus !

her nickname is   LOLA.   she was a showgirl

sporadic choice, i just thought it was cute.

backstory is that when she was in the hospital, she didn’t want to be herself anymore, was growing depressed from being cooped up in the hospital that her nurse gave her a name so she could ‘become’ someone new. since she was in the hospital for quite a time and her medical personnel continued to call her this nickname, it just stuck.

ᵈᵃᵐᶤᶰᶤ ⁻⁻

in sanskrit, damini means LIGHTNING. in bengali culture, people tend to have two names: their “good name”, or bhalo nam, which is used on all legal documents, and their “call name” or daak nam, which is used ONLY by close family and friends. rebati picked her eldest daughter’s bhalo nam intentionally -- her daughter was unexpected as a storm but as welcome as the rains that followed. her mother was also a romantic who wanted a more poetic name that would be used far more often than whatever infantilizing daak naam anyone else came up with. (it should be noted that rebati’s daak naam was BABLI and she hated it.) as a fairly distant line of the narayans, there was far less negotiation on potential names; there was no need to recognize an ancestor or honor a relative. the name is fairly uncommon, a detail that’s more important than one might expect given the number of cousins who gather for any important occasion. hridyanshu gave damini her daak naam; and so, only her father’s side of the family tends to call her MISHTI because supposedly, she loved eating sweet yogurt, or mishtidoi, as a baby. ( pronunciation )

ᶰᵃʳᵃʸᵃᶰ ⁻⁻

middle names are not as common in bengali culture -- especially when daak naams already exist. damini went her mother’s route and chose to change her last name instead of keeping her maiden name. there was no real reason for this aside from her opinion that damini narayan qutb shah was way too long for her to sign on documents. and, unlike her younger sister, marrying into a princely state involved certain optics: there was no way she wouldn’t take her husband’s name. ( pronunciation )

ᵠᵘᵗᵇ ˢʰᵃʰ ⁻⁻

the qutb shahi dynasty were recognized as a composite hindu-muslim religo-social culture. they ruled the golconda sultanate until the late 18th century, prior to the nizams coming into to power as viceroys of the mughal empire in the hyderabad deccan region. their heavy influence in hyderabadi culture makes it difficult to call hyderabad a south indian princely state. farhan and samaira were raised as muslims, but still celebrated major hindu holidays since it’s the dominant religion ( damini has decided to let mihir figure out his religious idenitity since she’s not particularly devout herself. ) though she was apathetic to the surname initially, damini feels even more confident in her decision to take farhan’s last name since his passing. ( pronunciation of QUTB and SHAH )                            

INARI: 🔊 [ ee-nah-ree ] Inari is apparently a relatively traditional name but most importantly, it’s a geographical name. Inari is a lake in Lapland. It’s one of the few ( if not the only ) Finnish geographical names ( source ). Her parents picked the name because it was beautiful & inspired by nature.

pronounciation: 

NAH - TAS - JAH : natasja is pronounced similarly to the russian name “natasha” except for the final syllable, which carried a heavy “j” sound. 

name significance: 

NATASJA - her name literally means “birthday”. but that doesn’t matter, it was the name her mother insisted on. she cherishes that fact, that her father disagreed with her name up until the very end and her name is... very unique, too, so she appreciates not sharing it with many. ( i chose natasja from a randomized list of icelandic names when i joined. i think i picked the one closest to a russian name bc i was oriignally interested in a russian royal lmao!! )

KRISTINA - this name means “to anoint”, although natasja has never looked it up. her father chose this name, and he wanted so badly for it to be her first name but eventually lost the argument. ( gonna be real with y’all, this was random as hell )