CHITRAL, Jan 23: With social changes taking place in Kalash, the people of the area have started deviating from their old way of naming newly-born babies. Now they name their babies after prominent personalities like Quaid-i-Azam, Allama Iqbal, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Saddam Hussin, Nehru, Churchill, etc.

The people of the controversial origin having unique culture live in the southern part of Chitral in three segregated valleys — Bumburate, Rumboor and Birir — whose population is about than 4,000.

The people and their valley attract a large number of tourists every year. According to the Kalash tradition, their old names signify nothing and carry no meaning, a Kalash elder said.

“Names like Ghantor, Timuk, Shingraye, Ghomitta, Tingle, Yasing, etc., have no connotation in the Kalash vocabulary,” he added.

Some people have also named their children as engineer, doctor, tehsildar, AC, DC, etc.

A Kalash told Dawn that typical Kalash names were not reserved for male or female as a male can have the same name as that of a female. Similarly, no prefix or suffix is used with names. Now, he said, the prefixes of ‘gul’ or ‘bibi’ are added to the Kalash names to identify their sex.

The names of the people born in the 1950s or earlier have their Kalash names but now such names are seldom adopted.

A Kalash resident said that the bizarre Kalash names had been abandoned to avoid embarrassment people felt while going outside the valley and mixing with people of other communities. It becomes more upsetting when one attends college or university.

Many new-born also have their names in English like one-two, ready-up, thank-you, etc.