What’s in a petname?

All I’m saying is “Bennifer” sounds too feminine

Look I’m just gonna come out and say it—I’m not a fan of  “Bennifer” as a supercouple petname or “ship name” as the hipsters call it, for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. I know his name is Ben… so it fits into the “pairing” of Bennifer like a glove... but it doesn’t feel right, in fact it feels like JLo gets all the glory… she just goes from Jennifer to Bennifer.

(It’s another thing that Bennifer sounds like a Parsi name).

All I’m saying is “Bennifer” sounds too feminine. 

There are loads of other name possibilities, right? How about Ben & Jenny (ok maybe sounds too much like an ice cream brand?) or AffLo (ok maybe sounds too much like a hairstyle?), How about BenLo… or Pezfleck?

My question is, what kind of supercouples get to get a portmanteau? I mean not every celeb couple gets the honour of a name pairing, right? Does the Twitterati not feel them cool enough to name them? 

Does the media not feel them adequately “worthy”?

Surprisingly Johnny Depp and Amber Heard never got a “pet name” even after all the media attention, not when they were a famous duo and not when they tried to defame each other. No DeppHeard… or AmbEpp?

IMHO, the perfect supercouple pairing was “Brangelina”.

Brangelina had some gravitas, the “ship name” had a cool ring to it. It seemed like a unit, individually they were beautiful, successful and their first names merged seamlessly. That was a tough act to follow.

Closer home the perfect one  is Virushka. 

Virushka flows off the bat, pardon the pun. Gotta admit, I’m partial to cricket-cinema “jodis”. There’s something hugely glamorous when people from India’s two biggest obsessions, unite in holy matrimony. In a pre-social media era, a Tiger Pataudi -Sharmila Tagore combo could have been Tig Tagmor or ManShar.

Hmmmm, Sangeeta Bijlani and Mohammed Azharuddin SangAzhar?

Back to cinema, I definitely don’t like VikKat for Mr Kaushal and Ms Kaif… I mean come on, you have the studly Vicky and the statuesque Katrina and you name them after a cricket stump?  Not cool guys.

Why were Ranbir and Alia jointly named Raalia—a name must have some poetry right?

I’d have gone for their surnames, so Bhattoor!

See if you’re asking me, this joining of names of supercouples can sometimes be limiting or forced—why “khaali-peeli” join names, when they don’t sound great. Are we serious about NickYanka for Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas?

Which brings me to the latest supercouple Sushmita and Lalit—well one is a supermodel and the other is a super… well not sure what adjective fits… renegade, rogue, debtor? See, both people need to have 
pizzazz and paparazzi appeal and that’s where Shri Modi fails a bit badly.

Would a name like AaryaLa fit? AaryaLa get it? It combines her name from her popular web series and the “La” from his name.

I have an even better suggestion—why not deviate from this ‘name joining’—if it’s yucky sounding, think out of the box —I’d call the Mr Modi/Miss Sen combo, IPL. IPL stands for I ‘Pataoed’ Lalit. #IPataoedLalit.

I know the trolls will go after me—the  feminists would accuse me of being chauvenistic. “She never ‘pataoed’’ him... she’s self- made… blah blah blue…”

Non-Bombayites would have a go at me for being too colloquial… a Dilli-ite would ask, “Yeh ‘patao’ ka mathlab kya hai?”

I have another query: Why aren’t two dudes given a name…doesn’t “bromance” deserve to be deemed supercouplehood?

Take Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal… how about RogRafa… FedAl?

Or two great female buddies… Sara Ali Khan and Janhvi Kapoor after the Koffee with Karan Show.

KhaKap or SaraJan?

Or two politicians, or two heads of the BCCI.

SaJa?

Just take the UK PM Race.

With BoJo leaving 10 Downing Street.

Its Rishi Sunak vs Liz Truss.

Suppose behind the scenes, they were the best of besties…

RishiLu? SunUss? 

These and more questions go through my mind.

Till next Sunday, au revoir, dear reader.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com

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