One Name, Too Cool
My advisor passed along a paper for me to read that blew my mind. The corresponding author has but one name…
So…
Fashion has Fabio;
Music has Madonna;
Biochemistry has Govindjee.
A quick bit of research from his Web site reveals:
I use only one name; Govindjee is my given name; my family name is “Asthana”, but I do not use it. My wife uses “Rajni Govindjee” as her name, and our children use “Anita Govindjee” and “Sanjay Govindjee” as their names. My departmental friends call me “Gov”.
I like his style. It balances out all of the German chemists who—back in the day—added fake middle initials to distinguish themselves from one another in the literature.
October 13th, 2011 at 9:04 PM
Baseball has Ichiro!
I like his style too…
October 13th, 2011 at 11:39 PM
I found this paper last week, and it blew my mind, too!
October 14th, 2011 at 2:45 AM
Ahh – the Pele/Zico/Ronaldo of chemistry. Oh wait, there are two Ronaldos…
October 14th, 2011 at 4:58 AM
Usually, tacking “jee” or “ji” to the end of one’s name in Indian languages serves as an honorific, like calling someone Prof. Dr. in Germany. I wonder if he used to be just “Govind”, and switched it up when he got tenure.
October 14th, 2011 at 5:06 AM
I echo See Arr Oh’s sentiments; the “jee” is used much as the Japanese use “san”, as a honorific. It’s likely that his family belonged to a line of important people (perhaps landlords, merchants, intellectual Brahmins or descendants from one of India’s many princely states) who were addressed by others using the honorific “jee”, and the name stuck and became his given name.
October 14th, 2011 at 8:40 AM
There are several more examples of one-name-only researchers in biochemistry (though vastly less eminent):
Suharti (at Delft University. Sometimes credited as Suharti S., although she only has one name)
Deligeer (a familiar name to researchers on copper-containing nitrite reductases in the late 1990′s, formerly at Gifu Univ., now at Inner Mongolia Univ.)
October 14th, 2011 at 9:23 AM
In Germany, we have examples entirely different from what Paul suggests may be common in this country, in his view. (What kind of English is this ?) For example, at the University of Cologne, there was a physicist with the strange name Meyer gen. Stäkel, which approximetaly meant Smith calld. Woodward. Change of names occurs in all cultures, we learn.
I myself have no middle initial, so I do not have to fake it, but I could easily call myself M. Wolfie X, as is shown on my birth certificate. M. means Michael, a dragon-killing angel, so be careful, you all.
October 15th, 2011 at 6:37 AM
Hey, he still walks the halls here at the U of I. See him every once in a while!
October 15th, 2011 at 8:22 AM
After a near lifetime of finding it difficult to deal with a unique name, and the near continuous explanations for its origins that seemed to be required for introductions, the internet rather suddenly makes it useful!
October 20th, 2011 at 6:16 PM
Wow, that’s almost like Michelangelo… or Raphael.
I wish I had only one name too.
October 23rd, 2011 at 8:36 AM
Just like Moses
November 11th, 2011 at 1:04 PM
[...] You think these guys know Govindjee? [...]
November 13th, 2011 at 5:35 AM
Obviously one name does not always mean importance: think of Jesus Christ…