In Reply to: why is everyone called...... posted by astrocat on Friday, 9. October 2009 at 08:40 Bali Time:
From my understanding there is about 5 castors or levels in which the hindu religion relate to. Within each castor there is a set of names like Wayan, Made, Nyoman and Ketut which are 1st child, 2nd child etc and then after 4th child it then returns back to Wayan. There is no difference between gender except for when you get to the higher castor( or Holy Level). In each castor the names can also change and this is where you can have Putu, Gede and there are some other names as well.It is very interesting to hear about how this all works and as you say there are several million Balinese all with the same name to us but the Balinese also have another name attached to there 1,2,3,4 name which is not confusing to them. If and when you are in Bali next you should get to know a Balinese person , sit down buy them a Bintang and ask to explain how it all works.