A man called Kovid has shared his unusual experiences of sharing his name with the Covid-19 virus.
Kovid Kapoor, 31, from Bangalore, Karnataka, India, has had a unique experience of the pandemic with his first name sounding just like that of coronavirus, but spelled a little differently.
For the past two years, he has been at the centre of puns, jokes and memes among friends and family, and strangers on the internet.
He has also had trouble with personalised celebrations and outings, with the icing on his 30th birthday cake changed to ‘Covid-30’ by the baker, while he gets stares at Starbucks when baristas shout out his name.
Others have quipped about needing to quarantine after meeting him for the first time.
When the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the generic name for the SARS-CoV-2 disease in February 2020, Kovid, who runs the travel company Holidify, immediately picked up on the similarity to his birth name.
Despite the relentless jokes, the 30-year-old – who caught the virus in May 2020 – says he takes it all in good spirits and joins in.
“It’s been a pretty crazy couple of years for me,” Kovid told Jam Press.
“When the WHO announced the name of the disease, the first thing I realised was the spelling and pronunciation was very close to my name.
“It was obviously not something I could do anything about, and it was a very amusing coincidence.
“There’s this massive global pandemic happening, possibly the biggest event of the century, and it shares the same name as me!
“The virus has a pronounced ‘d’ at the end, whereas my name mine is a lot softer. It’s a ‘duhh’ not a ‘da’.
“I’ve had a lot of funny run-ins with it.
“On my 30th birthday, a few friends placed an order for a cake and they asked the bakery to write ‘Happy birthday Kovid-30’ as a joke on the cake.
“But the bakery assumed that it was a joke on the virus, so they auto-corrected it to “Happy birthday Covid-30. We all found that really funny.
“The fact I run a travel company is a bit of an ironic joke in itself now.”
Kovid has also had some strange run-ins with people at hotels and airpots.
He said: “The list of small funny interactions is basically endless.
“I’ve had a small chuckle from the security staff at airport security and immigration. The officers will say ‘Oh, so Kovid is going to Sri Lanka now’.
“When I check into a hotel I’ve had staff joke ‘Oh I hope we don’t have to put your room under quarantine’.
“When I make a restaurant reservation or am I’m meeting someone for the first time they say the same thing.
“The most frequent jokes I get ‘Oh your name is Kovid – do you need a Crocin’, which is a paracetamol in India.
“Then there’s the classic ‘Hey will we have to quarantine after meeting you?’ and ‘What are the after-effects of meeting Kovid?’
“Sometimes when my friends shout out my name in public a lot of heads turn with an amused look, which is always entertaining!”
The resemblance to the virus has also seen travel company owner go viral on social media with wisecracking users sharing quips in the comments section.
In a recent post, which racked up 1,000 likes, Kovid poked fun at his name writing: ‘My name is Kovid and I’m not a virus #COVID2019 #coronavirusus.’
“Why did they name you after a virus??,” one person asked, referring to Kovid’s parents.
Kovid says his name is inspired by a Hindi religious hymn, meaning scholar or very learned person.
“Ahhhhh he is COVID STAY AWAY FROM HIMMMM,” added someone else. [sic]
A third user asked: “How does Kovid travel?”
Someone else, who seemed keen for Kovid to capitalise on his name, said: “Let’s make a movie on this. Make you even more popular.”
“Oh god this..cracked me up”, wrote another user.
Kovid anticipates that the jokes will continue for the rest of his life but he’s not bothered.
He added: “I think from this it shows people should be able to take a bit of humour on themselves, without getting offended.
“I have realised that people really appreciate that, and my name’s story would never have gotten so wildly popular had I not taken the name in the right spirit.”
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