According to Dr. Rajwant Chilana, there are over 7,000 choices Punjabi parents have when naming their newborn child.

In his new book, Punjabi Names and Their Meanings, Chilana not only lists all these thousands of possibilities, but also provides their meanings.

An additional section of the book provide descriptions of Punjabi honorific titles and popular nicknames, like Pinky, Boopy, Dimple, Santo, Rosie and so forth.

Thanks to Chilana’s book, parents can now also pour through dozens of options for an appropriate sobriquet for you and your siblings.

There is also a section on naming ceremonies among Punjabis.

According to the author, the aim of this book is to assist parents in selecting Punjabi names for their children as well as to serve as a resource to all others who wish to find out meanings of Punjabi names.  This reference book may prove a useful source for the people living in different parts of the globe, particularly in the Western countries where, because of limited choice, it is still a problem to select meaningful and suitable names among Punjabis.

Dr. Rajwant Singh Chilana is an Associate Professor (Emeritus) of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.  He holds MSc (Zoology), MLS, and PhD degrees, and earlier served as Librarian at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and University of Delhi, India as well as Library Manager at the Fraser Valley Regional Library, British Columbia, Canada.

His famous book ‘Dictionary of Sikh Names’ was widely acclaimed and has been reprinted many times.

Chilana now reside in Surrey, BC.

 More information on the book can be found at  www.asianpublications.com.