I had missed the news of the untimely September death of the 45-year-old musician Uppalapu Srinivas, who introduced an instrument often associated with the folk music of the southern United States — the mandolin — into the classical music repertoire of southern India. I like him not only for his music, which I recommend, but for the fact that he was so strongly associated with his instrument that in adulthood his name became, effectively, Mandolin Srinivas. We never had a Piano Gould or a Cello Rostropovich, though we did have a Johnny “Guitar” Watson.

English has many occupationally derived proper names, though they are so familiar that English-speakers do not register them as such: Smith, Shoemaker, Potter, etc. The various Indian languages have occupationally derived proper names that will sometimes jump out at the English-speaker: Manager, Doctor, Engineer. “Mandolin” would be an excellent addition to that catalog.

(If neither Indian music nor southern mountain music is your thing, Vivaldi wrote for the mandolin, too.)