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Both vivake and pathak are Hindi words, adopted directly from Sanskrit. If you live in India, especially north India, you must be aware of the correct pronunciation and meaning of my name; others may need assistance.

pronunciation

In vivake, viv is pronounced as it is done in vivid, and ake is pronounced as it is done in lake. In pathak, the first a is pronounced in the same way as it is done in far, th is pronounced as t is pronounced in too, and the second a is pronounced as u is pronounced in luck. For further clarity, I am presenting a recording of my name in an mp3 file, cpav.mp3, which you can hear by clicking on the following link:

pronunciation

If left click on the above link does not work, then you may right click on the link, save the sound file (cpav.mp3) on your computer, and listen to it by clicking on the name of the file in the folder that contains it.

meaning

The meaning of vivake is discernment, reason, insight, judgment, wisdom, discretion, sagacity, conscience, or discrimination, that is, the ability to judge what is true, right, profitable, or lasting; the capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; the ability to investigate, analyze, and understand deeply; or the power of making fine distinctions.

history

My first name has been changed twice: the first time, by my parents from Divyendu to Vivek before I was eight-years old; and the second time, by me from Vivek to Vivake in 2007.

Yes, the first official first name that my parents gave me was Divyendu, which is again a Hindi word, adopted from Sanskrit, and which means divine moon. But then something embarrassing happened. I was in class one or two in St. Joseph's School, and it was the last week of December. A cultural function was being held in the school before Christmas. At the end of the function, a Father who was dressed as Santa was distributing gifts to children. When my turn came, he could not spell my first name Divyendu properly and pronounced it somewhat as jeev-jantu. In Hindi, jeev means a living being, jantu means an animal, and together they stand for all the living kingdom of plants and animals. People present there had a great laugh at that incident. These people included some kids from my colony who also used to study in the same school. The word spread, and after that every kid in the colony started calling me jeev-jantu Pathak, so my parents changed my first name from Divyendu to Vivek. And from divine moon, I became discernment.

Later, some time after I had started working on my book, I realized that the spelling of my first name vivek did not properly represent its original pronunciation, that is, someone who has English as his mother tongue will not pronounce vivek the way it is intended to be pronounced in Hindi. I did some research on the pronunciation and spelling of various related English words and found that the best way to write my first name in English is vivake. So, six or seven years after that, in 2007, I officially changed the spelling of my first name from vivek to vivake, changing my full name from Vivek Pathak to Vivake Pathak.