In July 1979 when the American satellite Skylab was hurtling through the skies, nobody knew where its debris would hit the earth. The news of its impending land created jitters around the world.
People felt a sigh of relief when the US ground control finally confirmed that the Skylab debris would fall somewhere between the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.
Hours before the Skyland debris was about enter the earth’s atmosphere, a boy born in a hospital in Patiala in India was named Skylab Singh by his parents. To be precise, that was on July 11, 1979.
Now as the coronavirus forces lockdowns around the world, some parents in India have fallen in love with the name of the pandemic and naming their newly born babies after Corona, Covid and Lockdown.
A baby boy born in the village of Khukhundu in Deoria district in Uttar Pradesh state has been named Lockdown.
Explaining his choice of this name, the baby boy’s father Pawan Prasad was quoted as saying by media outlets, “On Sunday evening, I rushed my wife to the public health centre where she delivered a baby boy. I named him after Lockdown as we all are reeling under COVID-19 pandemic. My boy will remind everyone to take precautions against COVID-19, to save themselves and the nation.”
A baby girl born to Bablu Tripathi and Ragini in Sohgoura village of Gorakhpur district in the same state has been named Corona.
Corona’s uncle was quoted as saying that “the baby has brought unity in India and entire country celebrated the unity by beating thaalis (steel plates), so he named her niece as Corona.”
Similarly, a couple in the capital city of Raipur in Chhattisgarh state have named their newly born twins Corona (girl) and Covid (boy).
Preeti Verma, the 27-year-old mother of the twins, was quoted as saying that when the staff at the hospital where the twins were born started calling them Covid and Corona “we decided to name them after the pandemic.”
Corona as a baby name has also found favour with people elsewhere in the world.
A woman in the Philippine has named her baby Covid Bryant by combing the names of the virus and the late basketball superstar Kobe Bryant who was killed, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gigi, in a chopper crash in January.
Next, will someone name their baby Pandemic or Virus?
