My name is Kama, without an r. I haven’t changed my name, I was given this name at birth. When I was younger Kama was a really unusual name and people would always ask me twice to repeat my name and spell it. This meant that people often remembered my name and the spelling. As a teenager this wasn’t always an advantage as I was remembered each time I would get in to trouble at school.
In recent years there has been a new growth of people interested in Buddhism and as a result the work Karma has become popular. So in the past few years it has been assumed that my name is Karma. Even people who have known me for years have a tendency to put an r in my name. I always say without an r, however it is seldom that anyone really understands what I mean by that as they are not familiar with the name Kama without an r. I don’t mind, I just find it interesting.
So today I thought I would share with you the difference between the meanings of the two words Karma & Kama.
Karma (+r) = Karma is a big topic so we can’t possibly cover it in this posting so here is a brief definitions from Wikipedia. ”Karma means “deed” or “act” and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction, that governs all life. The effects experienced are also able to be mitigated by actions and are not necessarily fated. That is to say, a particular action now is not binding to some particular, pre-determined future experience or reaction; it is not a simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward or punishment.”
Kama (-r) = Kama comes from the Sanskrit word meaning “love”. It is a name of Lord Vishnu. Also name of the son of the goddess Lakshmi; he is the god of love and passion.
As you can see they have totally different meanings. Kama was given to me with love. My parents gave me a name which means love, which really is quite a beautiful thing to do.
Although I am not in any way offended by people using the name Karma when writing my name or referring to me, I do believe that the word Karma is quite a powerful one and, not something I would want people to believe I have called myself.
Thank you for reading about the differences and I hope this helps to clarify my name, which is Kama, a name I am very happy to carry.
Do you have a confusion with your name?
