OT: This post is written to answer one reader's specific question about it.

(Nick) wrote in message . com...
(PJDBAD) wrote in message ...
I'm just glad that I didn't say anthing about Christian name.

The term, 'Christian name', is ethnocentric and no longer favoured in usage.

"One day I looked up to find a tall young Indian standing in my office. He
wore an ill-fitting uniform, a cheerful smile, and the badges of a lieutenant
of the Indian Medical Service. I frowned ferociously. No one is supposed to
smile in the office of an adjutant. The young man said his name was Dutt, and
that he had been posted as our medical officer. This was a shock, as in those
days all King's Commissioned officers in a Gurkha battalion were British.
Still, we would have to make the best of it. I pulled an officer's record
sheet toward me, and asked, 'Name'?

'Dutt', he said, 'I just told you.'
'Rank?'
'Lieutenant, I.M.S.'
'Christian names?'
'None.'

I put down the pen and stared at him. 'I am very busy', I began coldly.
'And...'

'I am not a Christian', he said with a triumphant beam, 'so how can I have
Christian names? I am Hindu, and my full name is Santa Padhaya Dutt, if that
is what you want to know.'

I stared at the paper as though it had bitten me. 'Christian name' is, in
English-English, the normal phrase for 'first name'. I realised suddenly
that it was not a mere phrase, it meant exactly what it said. The point
had never arisen before. Times were changing. There was a war on. Oh,
well...I silently quoted one of my colonel's pet phrases--'Worse things
happen at sea.'"

--John Masters (The Road Past Mandalay, p. 10-1)

John Masters (DSO, OBE) was a British officer of the Indian Army during the
Second World War. After the war, he became a novelist.

Someone has asked whether or not Lieutenant Santa Padhaya Dutt, an Indian
doctor serving under British command, really considered himself loyal to the
British Raj. During the Second World War, Lieutenant Dutt served on the
British side, but, in his conscience, he did not serve the cause of British
imperialism in India. Instead, he supported the nationalist cause of Indian
independence.

"We had an uneventful trip to the mouth of the Persian Gulf, except for the
arguments that developed when Santa Padhaya Dutt said blandly that he wasn't
fighting to maintain England's rule over India, only to insure that it was
not replaced by Germany's. It must be remembered that British officers of
Gurkha battalions, spending most of their time protecting India's frontiers
against tribal raids, lived a life far removed from the turmoil of Indian or
world politics. Dutt was regarded as something of an eccentric, not for his
nationalism but because he knew about the matter at all and was interested in
it. The rest of us had simply shut the whole thing out of our minds. When
the time came, someone would tell us to go home; meanwhile we had a job to do.
But all Englishmen love an eccentric and Dutt became very popular."
--John Masters (The Road Past Mandalay, pp. 17-8)

"...Fielding mocked again. And Aziz in an awful rage danced this way and that,
not knowing what to do, and cried: 'Down with the English anyhow. That's
certain. Clear out, you fellows, double quick, I say. We may hate one another,
but we hate you most. If I don't make you go, Ahmed will, Karim will, if it's
fifty-five hundred years we shall get rid of you, yes, we shall drive every
blasted Englishman into the sea, and then'--he rode against him furiously--'and
then', he concluded, half kissing him, 'you and I shall be friends.'

'Why can't we be friends now?' said the other, holding him affectionately.
'It's what I want. It's what you want.'

But the horses didn't want it--they swerved apart; the earth didn't want it,
sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples, the
tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came
into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it,
they said in their hundred voices, 'No, not yet', and the sky said, "No, not
there.'"

--E.M. Forster (1924, A Passage to India)

--Nick