My name is Ratri, the Goddess of night

What's in a name? 

it’s a famous quote by Shakespeare from “Romeo and Juliet” play, or in Bahasa we recognize it as “Apalah arti sebuah nama”. Although I adore Shakespeare so much but I'm disagree with him.

My full name is “Ratri Indah Septiana”, and from age 5 years old until I entered Junior High School, I simply hate my name. So many people gets wrong calling my name, they call me Ratih, Tantri, or even Lastri. Uurrgghhhh. I often yelled at them and asked why is so hard to remember my name.

The worst part is when I was become Liason Officer crew at Java Jazz Festival. I have to deal with so many foreign people and they are really hard to pronounce my name. Introducing myself become an awkward moment and I have to mention at least three times. So, my names isn't cool for for both National and International people. *sigh

But things going different when Ayah explain the history behind my name. He told me that “Ratri” means “night” in Sanskrit, it simply because I was born at night. “Sept” in Septiana means September, my birth month and “Tiana” refers to Mariana, my grandmother names. “Indah” was given the last, because my parents thinks that Ratri Septiana is too weird. So, voila! Ratri Indah Septiana was created, that’s cool, and I started to love my name. its more meaningful than I thought before. 

When google came to my life, i’m googling my name. I found that my name is on the Wikipedia! Wowwww. Wiki tells that

 “Ratri, often also called Ratridevi, is the goddess of night in the Vedas and the mythology of India and Hinduism. She is sister to Ushas, the Vedic goddess of Dawn. Her name is the common/ordinary word for nighttime in Indian languages like Kannada , Bengali, Tamil, Telugu.”

“The goddess Ratri is a minor character in Roger Zelazny's science fiction novel Lord of Light, who encounters and aids the protagonist in his battle against the other gods”

Ratri on Wikipedia

Once I discussed with My friend Miman, about our names. He reckon that my full name has a strong meaning, it means “beautiful night in September” (Malam yang indah di bulan September).

And suddenly I feel great! 

So have you googling the meaning of your name? hehehehehe

Source: Ratri - Wikipedia