Filmy Indian Baby Names from Bollywood

About this collection

Filmy names are the ones Hindi cinema turned into household words. Raj and Simran, Rahul and Anjali, Prem, Pooja, Naina, Rani and Veer have all been the names of leading characters so often that many parents hear the film before they hear the meaning. Kajol and Rani are the names of stars as well as characters.

The label describes association, not origin. Almost every name here has an ordinary dictionary meaning: Raj is rule, Vijay is victory, Kiran is a ray of light, Nisha is night, Geet is a song, Akash is the sky. Kabir is the fifteenth-century poet-saint before he is a film hero, and Siddharth is the Buddha's given name. Aisha, Zoya and Zara come from Arabic and Persian.

A filmy name is easy to pronounce across India because audiences everywhere have heard it. The trade-off is that a classroom may hold more than one. The guides show the meaning and the spelling so that the name can stand on its own after the film is forgotten.