In a volume of memories from his youth Sadruddin Ayni, the father of modern Tajik literature, has related how, in the last years of the nineteenth century, he made his first steps in Persian poetry while he was a poor student at one of the madrasas of Bukhara. He was encouraged by another young poet, who had adopted the pen name of Ḥayrat (Astounded). Describing the personality of his friend, Ayni remarked that “He spoke very little and, in accordance with the meaning of his pen name, always made a bewildered impression, looking at all things with astonished eyes.”

Soon Ayni had to decide on a pen name of his own, which he wanted to faithfully reflect his own condition. His first choice was Siflī (the Inferior), because he felt that the people of Bukhara, in particular the learned clerics, looked down upon him as an ignorant boy from the countryside. After some time he became aware that this was an unjustified feeling. He was not inferior to them at all, but merely “in need” of their help and their teaching; so he took the name of Muḥtājī instead. This was not his last change of mind. Before he finally decided upon ʿAyni, he also tried Junūnī (the Frenzied) for a while, in defiance of people who regarded his eccentric behaviour as a sign of madness.

Among his fellow students the selection of a proper pen name seems to have been even more urgent than the writing of one's first poem. A favourite topic of conversation was the meaning of the chosen name. To prepare himself for this, Ayni resorted to a dictionary. He found that the meanings of “eye” and “source” appealed most to him, but kept this to himself. Whenever someone asked about the meaning of his pen name, he used to answer: “the word ʿayn has 48 different meanings. Look for yourself in the dictionary!”

Sadruddin Ayni wrote down these recollections after half a century, when he had become a modern socialist writer who looked back on the conventions of a rejected past with evident irony. As a document adding to our knowledge of Persian pen names and the manner in which they were adopted by poets, his tale is therefore rather suspicious.