First.

I mean that's a decent name.

And then proceeded to name him…Ickitt.

I assume they plan to home school him.

So are we going for the nickname "Icky" ?

ickittu would sound more deshy

"I suppose it’s better than Bronx Mowgli."

Mowgli is more desi than Ickitt, I'd say. I think she should have gone for something more musical, like "Oodoodanoo". Or maybe "Milwaukee".

perhaps she forgot to add "cr" at the beginning of the lad's name.

but srsly, Ickitt is an incredibly unfortunate name.

Although I'm Sri Lankan as well, and have a very unusual name (although still desi sounding)... Ickitt is definetely out there.
I don't know why my mind wonders to how they would have come up with this name..

ie.
1. Pig latin for tickit without the ay
2. Maybe its from a License Plate -> I SEEK IT.= ICKITT

So much for names like Bensingham or Miabalan :-P

Out of time to give this anymore thought :).

I guess that Lemony Snickitt will need to pick an exotic professional name such as Selvadurai or Arulananthan when he has his short-lived spin off music career in 20 days.

5 · Oodoodanoo said

"I suppose it’s better than Bronx Mowgli."

Mowgli is more desi than Ickitt, I'd say. I think she should have gone for something more musical, like "Oodoodanoo". Or maybe "Milwaukee".

Mowgli is not a desi name at all. Kipling made it up. We associate it with India because of the ubiquity of The Jungle Book. I don't like Ickitt just because it is too harsh sounding. Too many hard consonants.

ickett, as they say, is not quite cricket.

Haha, I love it! I would expect nothing less from M.I.A. I haven't a clue how her mind works but I love the stuff she comes up with.

i can't believe they rejected "bobby"

10 · portmanteau said

ickett, as they say, is not quite cricket.

But is it stickier than a wicket?

I'll be here all night, folks!!

Well, I guess it rhymes with cricket. That's kind of desi...

Sampar-urula Arulpragasam Brewer would be much tastier than the ickier Ickitt Brewer

15 · LandBeyond7Zs said

Sampar-urula Arulpragasam Brewer

They should have gone with a first name of Milwaukee.

Sometimes you have to feel sorry for the poor kids of these high flying superstars (can we call MIA that yet?)

Poor thing doesn't have a last name!

(Not that the first name is something he can boast of!)

A six letter name? Travesty.

Ickitt
While not well pick-ed
Is less ugly
Than Bronx Mowgli.

E Clerihew Bentley might approve.

I know of an ABD guy named Ikshvaku whose name was reduced to "Ick". "Ickitt" as a name does lick it.

poor kid. kids are going to tease him. i mean it's so easy!
Stickitt. Kickitt

MIA and her handsome hubby must have been intoxicated by the extreme cuteness of their newborn when they chose the name. (I know because I was also crazed by the adorable looks of my newborn daughter 10 years ago.)

His name sounds like a modified truncated version of an English name like Samuel Beckett to me.

will no lankan stand firmly at the back of the crease, pull off the front foot and name their child, "sonnaboy" or perhaps, "what, la?" Y'know, the things that mums ACTUALLY use in reference to their children.

I should have said MIA's fiance, not hubby. Sorry about that.

who cares? The baby is rich! He aint takin orders from no one

MIA denies on her myspace page that the baby's name is Ickitt.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1606517/20090306/mia__4_.jhtml

I would not know how to judge this name because every Sri Lankan that i have come across had strange name. Two Sri Lankan boys i know have very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita, and another Sri Lankan boy has the name "Lanka". But i would have to say Ickitt wins the award to be the strangest of them all. maybe it would help to put a desi accent on it?

very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita,

The ending vowel is schwa and Hindu Sri Lankas (as well as many South Indian desis) have names like Arjuna, Ananda etc...

27 · fallen jhumki said

I would not know how to judge this name because every Sri Lankan that i have come across had strange name. Two Sri Lankan boys i know have very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita, and another Sri Lankan boy has the name "Lanka".

Ok, need to address this: Sri Lankan boys don't have girly names. The "a" ending is pronounced "uh", so those name are An-ju-luh and Roo-see-tuh. Syllables are stressed evenly, Rs are rolled, and consonants are soft.

The problem is that most Sri Lankan words and names (Sinhala especially) are transcribed really strangely into English. I don't know how this began, where these transcription conventions originated. For example, many Sinhala words are spelled with a 'w' in English (places like Polonnaruwa, Hikkaduwa; last names like Wickramatunga) but the letter W doesn't exist in Sinhala. It's a soft V. Makes it very confusing. Tamil fares better, in this regard, I think...but the words are so long when spelled out in English, it's another can of worms.

take this job and stickitt, digitt, cuz I get wickitt. peeps who keep it real will know this.

I love how they said this in the MTV article -

New York's Daily News contacted several South Asian writers and scholars for illumination on the significance of the name "Ickitt," to little avail.

K.T. Rajasingham, editor of the online publication the Asian Tribune, told the paper it is not a Tamil name. A New York member of the South Asian Journalists Association said that in classical Tamil, the word "Ickattu" means "tough" or "inextricable," but he had no translation for "Ickitt."

K.T. Rajasingham, editor of the online publication the Asian Tribune, told the paper it is not a Tamil name. A New York member of the South Asian Journalists Association said that in classical Tamil, the word "Ickattu" means "tough" or "inextricable," but he had no translation for "Ickitt."

28 · my_dog_jagat said

very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita,

The ending vowel is schwa and Hindu Sri Lankas (as well as many South Indian desis) have names like Arjuna, Ananda etc...

Actually Tamils in Sri Lanka (who form the bulk of Hindu Sri Lankans) hardly use name like Arjuna or Ananda whilst amongst the Sinhalese, who are mostly Buddhist, names like Arjuna, Ananda, Janaka are very common.

According to the following site, M.I.A. did not name her baby boy "Ickitt".

http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/goddess/m-i-a-my-baby-is-not-called-ickitt/191?nc

27 · fallen jhumki said

I would not know how to judge this name because every Sri Lankan that i have come across had strange name. Two Sri Lankan boys i know have very girly names: Anjula, and Rusita, and another Sri Lankan boy has the name "Lanka". But i would have to say Ickitt wins the award to be the strangest of them all. maybe it would help to put a desi accent on it?

They are not 'girly names'. The 'a' on the end of those names is pronounced as 'er' in baker, singer, runner in a British accent (without the r at the end pronounced). So it nis Anjuler and Rusiter. They are 'girly names' if the 'a' at the end is elongated like Anjulaa and Rusitaa. Just like cicatrix said these differences are not apparent when transliterated into English. Another common name in Sri Lanka is Tushara. When it is pronounced Tusharer it is a boy's name and when it is is Tusharaa it's a girls name. Manjuler is a boys name whilst Manjulaa is a girl's name but they are both written in English as Manjula.

Hindi and several other North Indian languagese have lost the inherent vowel that is part of Sanskrit. So it is Arjun, Tushar, Janak, Chandan etc, whilst Sinhalese retains the Sanskrit inherent vowel and it is Arjuna, Tushara, Janaka, Chandana.

18 · Ickettalingam ????

Icketta..lingam

You must wash it once in a while..... LOL

"Tamil fares better, in this regard, I think...but the words are so long when spelled out in English, it's another can of worms."

Yes, I dare say no Tamil cherishes lugging things like "Waalooppillai" around.

http://www.nme.com/news/mia/43295

: It’s a hoax, I was had

Awww I was having so much fun with Ickettalingam. It would have made a nice addition to the kuppuswamy (garbage swamy) line of southern names.

39 · my_dog_jagat said

Awww I was having so much fun with Ickettalingam

LambuLingam, MahaLingam, Yoni( good Hebrew name as well, YYY connection ?), Keezh Vanam TamizhKudiMagan, VadiVel are good classic names. I dig Tamizh, Hindi does not feel the same for me(no offences, I read both languages but a Malayali).

30 · someguy said

take this job and stickitt, digitt, cuz I get wickitt. peeps who keep it real will know this.

best comment!

OT, but what an awful looking dress that is, at least to my untrained eyes!

Any German-speaking desis out there?
(I'm referring to comments 40 & 43).

43 · TTCUSM said

Any German-speaking desis out there?(I'm referring to comments 40 & 43).

Weekend service slowdown, sorry! Those comments were spam and have now been deleted.

So, the rumor about Ickitt wasn't really false, at least according to this story. The kid's inheriting a $5.3B fortune to fund his therapy sessions about being called Ikhyd. Unless this story is false too, of course.