In the movie, Ashima is a singer, and she returns to India at the very end of the film to continue her singing. Instead of a younger brother named Rana, Ashima has a younger sister named Rini.

The movie simply changes some details for convenience or dramatic effect. The ending is condensed by a year: Gogol and Moushumi separate the same year that Ashima sells her Boston house. Instead of Ashoke telling Gogol the story behind his name during a visit home from college, this conversation occurs while Gogol and Maxine are visiting the Gangulis just before Ashoke’s death. The important events that happen to Gogol between first grade and twelfth grade (meeting Moushumi, his trip to India, his high school English class’ discussion of Nikolai Gogol) all occur during his senior year. In the movie, some events are moved around in time so they can still appear in the movie. Moushumi’s affair with Dmitri (whose name is Pierre in the movie) gets mentioned only briefly, and Dmitri/Pierre never appears onscreen. All of his college years are omitted, as are his relationships with Ruth and Bridget. Gogol leaps in age from first grade to twelfth grade. To keep the story short enough for a feature film, the movie excludes many moments. The movie begins with Ashoke on the train, then moves to Ashima meeting Ashoke, subsequently progresses to their life in America, and so on. In the movie, however, nearly every event is in chronological order. The novel is full of flashbacks-for example, Chapter 1 begins with pregnant Ashima’s trip to the hospital, then jumps back to Ashima’s memory of meeting Ashoke, then returns to the labor, then goes back even further to Ashoke’s near-death experience, and finally ends with Gogol’s birth. One of the ways the novel differs from the movie is the order in which events are portrayed. Of course, watching the movie is not a substitute for reading the book: A number of details are lost or changed to make the story fit within the film medium. As movie adaptations of books go, the film adaptation is very faithful to the novel.

In 2006, The Namesake was adapted into a film directed by Mira Nair by the same title.

The namesake novel