Meghani (Gujarati મેઘાણી, Hindi मेघाणी) is a Gujarati surname. It is judged by the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland 'probably' to originate in the Sanskrit word मेघ (megha).[1] The name Megha is glossed by the Penguin Book of Hindu Names for Boys as 'sprinkler', 'cloud, mass', the name of a mythical rakshasa, and 'the father of the 5th Arhat of the present Avasarpinī'.[2] In the surname Meghani, Megha is combined with the adjectival suffix -ani, ostensibly implying a name meaning 'to do with cloud' but, since Megha can also be a personal name, more likely meaning 'descended from Megha'. The dictionary identifies the name as a Hindu one, and notes that 'this name is also found among people from Sind, Pakistan, who have migrated into India'.
People
editNotable people with the name include:
- Jayant Meghani (1938–2020), Indian editor and translator from Gujarat
- Jhaverchand Meghani (1896–1947), Indian poet, writer, social reformer and freedom fighter from Gujarat
References
edit- ^ The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ed. by Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, and Peter McClure, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), III, p. 1819 [s.v. Meghani]; ISBN 978-0-19-967776-4.
- ^ Maneka Gandhi, The Penguin Book of Hindu Names for Boys (New Delhi: Penguin, 2004), p. 212 (s.v. Megha).
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