Blood Tests Reveal Sikhness

Routine tests run on blood donated by Bob Goddard suggest that the Englishman has some exotic ancestry.

The 64-year-old's rare combination of blood groups has revealed he could be related to the last Sikh royal family, who once owned the Koh-i-noor diamond.

Further research into Mr Goddard's family tree has shown that his great grandfather may have been Prince Freddy, second son of Maharajah Duleep Singh, known as the "last king of the Sikhs".

Mr Goddard said he discovered that his grandfather, Charlie Goddard, who was born in 1888, was the illegitimate son of an unmarried serving maid at Breckles Hall in Norfolk.

"She would never reveal the father's identity, but it was rumoured he was an Indian prince who stayed there," he added. [Link]

He Read the Writing on the Wall

As recently reported, the Sikh tradition of giving every baptized male the name Singh has led to confusion. It also led to Farrukh Dhondy meeting a young lady by the name of Kulvinder Bill-Stickers.

I waited till I was just sufficiently acquainted with her to ask how she came by such a radical name. She said her father had come with a lot of Punjabi immigrants on a ship from Bombay to Southampton some years before and on the voyage he had become sick and tired of being confused with all the other Singhs that were on the ship. He took a private and stubborn vow, as one sometimes irrationally does, to change his name to the first word that he saw when he set eyes on England. The ship docked and from the railings Mr Singh saw the epithet 'BILL-STICKERS WILL BE PROSECUTED' stencilled in paint on a wall. [Link]

[Photo credit: bill stickers sign by noisehead]

Sikh and Ye Shall Find Two Surnames

A Sikh group in Canada is upset over a policy that requires immigrants with the surname Singh or Kaur to change their names.

Karen Shadd-Evelyn, a spokeswoman with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said the reason for the policy is that it helps officials with the paperwork and allows them to identify people's files quickly, efficiently and accurately.

"You can imagine you wouldn't want your file to be confused with someone else's," she said.

Singh and Kaur are common names in the Sikh community. In a tradition that began more than 300 years ago, the name Singh is given to every baptized male and Kaur to every baptized female Sikh. There are millions of Singhs and Kaurs around the world. [Link]

During the Sikh naming ceremony, the holy book—Guru Granth Sahib—is opened to a random page. The given name of the child is left to the parents, but must start with the first letter of the first word on that page.

In older days parents were not very fussy about choosing the name. We often hear such names [as] Vir Singh, Jodh Singh, Lal Singh, Kala Singh, Teja Singh and Ganda Singh. Literally translated some of these would mean red, black, sharp and onion. [Link]