ESL Blogs

I am an Indian, to be precise a Keralite (a person from the state of Kerala, where the native tongue is MALAYALAM - the longest palindromic language in the world). In my state as well as in other states of India, people commonly ask What's your good name? instead of What's your name? No Englishman will ask such a question. Indians think that it is a polite question. But the insertion of good does not make the sentence polite. A teacher will ask their student What's your name? but a student should not ask the same question to the teacher because What's your name? is not a polite question. A student should be polite to his or her teacher. A student may ask the teacher May I know your name, please? because it is a polite question. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says that What is the name, please? and What was the name, please? are the polite ways of asking someone's name.