Indian name

Indian names are based on a variety of systems and naming conventions, which vary from region to region. Names are also influenced by religion and caste. India's population speaks a wide variety of languages and nearly every major religion in the world has a large representation in India. This variety makes for subtle, often confusing, differences in names and naming styles. For example, the concept of a second name did not exist in South India until modern legal systems initiated the use of second names to reduce the occurrence of name clashes.

For many Indians, the birth name is different from the official name; the birth name starts with a letter considered auspiscious on the basis of the person's horoscope. Some children are given three names: A unique first name, an (often) unique middle name, and a last name, which is usually the family name. It can also be a God's name, or the grandfather's or grandmother's name – depending on the sex of the child. Many children are given two names: a first and a last. The first name is often unique and the last name is usually the family name. One person having four names is uncommon, as are persons with single, unique names.

Given names

A proper name, or given name, is the name to which a person most often answers. Usually this name is also used in legal documents and official records. In some parts of India, the second name is used to indicate respect. Second names are often suffixed by '-ji' or '-saheb'/'-sahib' to indicate respect in informal conversation.

Close relatives and friends call others simply by their given name. In some regions, especially in rural India, a married woman's name may be entirely dropped; she is instead addressed as "wife of [husband's name]" or "mother of [son/daughter's name]". In some instances, a married woman is given a different given name by her husband's family. When several people in a community have the same given name, adjectives such as 'big'/'small', 'old'/'young,' or other nicknames may be used to distinguish them.

Last names

For Hindus belonging to the upper castes, the lineage of a person is known through his or her gothram, which is usually the name of the first traceable paternal ancestor in their lineage, like athreya, koundinya etc. For some people, it may be the ancestral profession or village name. Two people of the same gothram cannot wed, as they are supposed to be related filially. Lower caste Hindus often lack formal last name or use place names or caste names as surnames. Muslims often use two given names instead of surnames.

Many upper caste Indians use ancestral village names, occupations, honorifics, titles, caste or clan derivatives as their family names. The subcaste names are themselves derived from occupations or characterics of the subcaste ie: Within subcastes among Telugu brahmins: Niogi derives from ancestral appointments as ministers of the royal court. Vaideeki denotes an ancestor who followed the profession of religious teaching, and Velanati and Telaganya indicate the ancestral places of their origin. These are used for subcaste identification and not necessarily indicated as part of the name.

The caste or subcaste name is often used as part of a name or as a title. These are analogous to western family names like Smith and Barber to the extent that they represent occupation. Reddy (Hindu Telugu Landowner caste) is an example. Where the use of surnames was not customary, use of the caste name as the surname is increasing in recent times. Examples of surnames of this kind from southern India include 'Iyer', 'Iyengar', Gounder, 'Nair', 'Naidu', 'Reddy', 'Gowda', 'Shetty/Setty'.

Caste names indicate their ancestors` occupation, like Western last names of Carpenter and Smith : Mohandas Gandhi belonged to the caste of Gandhis ("perfume merchants"). Gandhi's wife's maiden name, mother's maiden name and grandmother's maiden name were all Gandhi even if they came from unrelated families. Caste names are not really family names. Patel, Iyer, Mudaliar are all caste names.

There are a few exogamous divisions within castes. These are usually on the basis of deities worshipped by the family. For example, Tamma (within Reddy caste). This is widely followed by the Telugu people. Balgangadhar Tilak another Independence-era leader's last name belongs to this category. This is more common among castes, like the Brahmins, that are spread throughout the country. People of different subcastes may intermarry; hence, these are even more like Western last names. Kamath and Shenoy are both Konkani Brahmin last names. Clan names are used only in small communities scattered around the country. The Chota Nagpur tribals use as clan names the names of animal deities with whom they claim kinship. The Kodavas of South India also have clan names.

A person's religious affiliations also affects his last name. Sikhs as a community have adopted Singh (meaning Lion) as a suffix to their names and that is often used just as any other last name would be. Many Sikh women use Kaur(meaning Princess or lioness) as their last names. The name "Singh" predates the Sikh faith and is still common amongst upper caste Kshatriyas; both as "Singh" or the suffix "-sinh" as part of their given or family names. Zail Singh, one of India's ex-presidents, was a Sikh scholar. Sikhs, followers of a faith founded during the Mughal rule in India, often have the middle name Singh and a last name that identifies their clan or hometown, since Sikhs don't have castes, like the cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu. But some Sikhs may drop the clan name and Singh then becomes the last name. Singh, on the other hand, is the preferred surname of several North Indian Hindus and is not exclusively used by Sikhs.

Jains, followers of Mahavira, often use the last name Jain. Like "Singh", this is also a surname used by other Hindus especially upper caste Thakurs (Kshatriyas) or Rajputs. Typically a Hindu name will have a "given" first name, a middle name (which can be the father's name in some regions like Maharashtra), and a last name or family name. A southern Indian on the other hand will use only the first name along with his caste/village prefixed. Christian names in India have over the past two centuries evolved into a unique amalgamation of Indian and Western patterns. For example consider X. Antony Alex Miranda - Here, X represents Xavier, his father, Miranda, the surname or family name, Alex and Antony are the first and second names. The pattern of Muslim names is similar to Muslim names elsewhere.

In Maharashtra many family names are derived by attaching a "kar" to their place of origin. e.g. people whose last name is Gavaskar trace back their origin to the town of Gavas, The Tendulkars trace their origins to Tendol, Pawaskar to Pawas, and so on. Some Hindu families have names that reflect the academic achievements of their forefathers. e.g., Sastri - one who has studied the Sastras, Dwivedi - one who has studied two vedas, Trivedi - three vedas, Chaturvedi - four vedas. Others include Pathak, Acharya, Upadhyaya, Pandit, etc.

Some families in India tend to rename themselves on the basis of their profession. This is common among the Parsis, who have surnames ending with "wala" meaning someone who engages in a particular activity. Names like "Screwala" when the person might have sold screws or "cyclewala" (cycle seller) are quite common. In fact, "wala" is quite a common suffix used for any type of merchant. Many social ranks were also hereditary. Names such as 'Talukdar', 'Tehsildar', 'Tarafdar', 'Pillai' are based on social rank.

Jawaharlal Nehru , India's first Prime Minister had an invented family name. Nehru was a family name adopted by his father when they arrived in Allahabad from Kashmir. Thus, his wife's maiden name was not Nehru. This is obviously an exception to the statement that Indians do not have last names. Another example is the name of Rajesh Pilot, Indian ex-minister, who attached his surname after a stint in the Indian Air Force.

Sometimes a family name is added on to the end of the name as an initial, eg. Noushad S. U. (or S. U. Noushad) the shortened form of Noushad Shafi Ulooji, which is interpreted as Noushad, son of Shafi of the Ulooji family.

It is also common for people to name their children after international personalities. Most of the times the surname is used as a first name, like Einstein, Churchill, Kennedy, Beethoven, Shakespeare etc., and tend to denote the parents' political affiliations. Like in Western societies, parents are beginning to experiment with uncommon names, or are using words that aren't usually considered names, like Proton Padmanabhan, Alpha Jyothis and Omega Jyothis.

South Indian names

For a long time, South Indians had a simple naming system. Historically, everyone was given a single name, which was chosen in one of three ways that South Indians chose their names on the basis of :

The name of their Village / Town e.g. Delhi Ganesh
Their Family name e.g. Pulithevar
or both e.g. Madurai Mani Iyer

The concepts of initials, middle names, family names and surnames are foreign to Tamiliana. Everyone had a single name like Murugesh or Lakshmanan. Occasionally these names were extremely lengthy, like Murugesa Lakshmanan. A lengthy name could be interpreted as a sign of parental affection. However it was not the full name of a particular family, nor did it give more information about that family.

Under British rule, Indians were expected to follow English procedures for official purposes such as registering births, enrolling children in school and registering land ownership details.

Many South Indians, especially the Telugu people, use the name of their ancestral hometown, or the family profession as the family name. In this case the surname is placed before the given name. Some Tamil people have both a village name and a caste name as part of their name, for instance Madurai Mani Iyer. Here, Madurai is a town and Iyer is a caste. Many Keralites especially Syrian Christians use as their last name the "tharavaad" -- a description of their ancestral home. Names like Pramod Perumparambil and Paul Chemmanoor fall under this category.

In southern India, especially in Tamil Nadu and Kerala where caste symbols tend to be kept private, there is widespread usage of a patronymic: use of the father's given name as the second name. This means that the given name of one generation becomes the second name of the next. In many cases, this second name is used as an initial and the given name may appear like a second name. For example a name like "Ajith Abraham" means "Ajith son of Abraham". If Ajith then has a son named Ashwin, then his name would be Ashwin Ajith.

It is common for Tamil women to adopt their husband’s first name as their own surname. Sunitha Gopalan (Sunitha daughter of Gopalan) might change her name to Sunitha Rajiv (Sunitha wife of Rajiv) after marriage. Some South Indians use an inverted patronym as their last names. For example, Chitra Visweswaran is a dancer whose last name is either a patronym or the given name of her husband. More common among women, the inverted patronym is also adopted by people migrating West who want to be called by their given names without having to explain Indian naming conventions. Their last names are then the given names of their fathers or husbands.

Among Christians in Kerala, it is a common practice to have a middle name which is the baptismal name, usually the first name of a grandparent or godparent, like Roshni Mary George and Anoop Antony Philip. Till about two decades ago, some people were named in the 'Family name-Given name-Caste' format. Eg Kannoth Karunakaran Maarar, interpreted as Karunakaran of the Maarar caste from the Kannoth family.

Initials

In Western societies, when there are two people with the same name, for example, Robert Jones and Robert Smith, in a class, they are referred to as Robert J. and Robert S. respectively to avoid confusion. But, two Ramans in South India do not have different surnames, since Raman is their only name. So the names of their fathers are used as initials instead of a surname. Raman, son of Gopal, would be G. Raman, and Raman, son of Dinesh, D. Raman. This led to the initial system, mostly followed in South India. Most schools automatically add the initials upon enrolment. In certain societies, a person without an initial (and therefore presumed illegitimate) is looked down upon. An initial is also compulsory for government records. A missing initial in certificates, bank transactions etc. is sometimes considered illegal and may cause inconvenience.

In some parts of Tamilnadu, traditional family names have recently been abandoned in favour of a father's/husband's first name as a family name. The use of a father's/husband's first name as a family name is in vogue. These family names are also used as initials. School and college records would have the names with initials as given below. "S. Janaki" - the family name initial and then the given name. "S. Janaki" might also be written as "Janaki Sridar" in legal documents.

Legal documents such as passports will have the last name fully expanded, instead of initials. Other legal documents such as property deeds will have any of these name formats with the mention of father’s /grandfather’s/husband’s name and/or village/town/city name.

Men's names are usually prefixed with initials as mentioned before. Some men used to omit the initial, adding the father's name in the end. However, this isn't a legal name and won't change their name in official records. For example, both P. Chidambaram and Chidambaram Palaniyappan are valid; however the latter form is not legally used. Generally, the initials are omitted, and father's name is suffixed in order to shorten a name, for example, G. Raja Ravi Varma, son of M. Gopal Krishnan, becomes Raja Gopal.

For women, the system of initials is slightly different. Before marriage, a girl uses her father's initial, but after marriage, she uses her husband's initial. Of late the trend has changed and many women, especially those employed, do not change the initials, but continue with their father's initials. This is mainly for convenience, since school degree and career papers have the woman's father's initials on them. Changing a name legally is a cumbersome procedure, including announcing the proposed change in a newspaper and getting it published in an official gazette. So the modern trend is to add the husband's name in the end, like some Western women who add their husband’s name with a hyphen.

People who don't understand the South Indian naming protocol, sometimes expand the initials in an incorrect manner. For example, the name P. Chidambaram, tends to be expanded to Palaniyappan Chidambaram, which is incorrect in the sense that it implies that the person's first name is "Palaniyappan", and the last name or the family name is "Chidambaram". In fact, the person's only name is "Chidambaram", with an initial of "P". Other such famous misrepresentations include the chess grandmaster, V. Anand (wrongly expanded as Vishwanathan Anand); cricketer, L. Sivaramakrishnan (Laxman is his father's name); and the freedom fighter and statesman, C. Rajagopalachari (often cited as Charkaravarty Rajagopalachari). On the other hand, north India media refers to Dr.Anbumani (son of Dr.Ramadoss) often simply as Dr.Ramadoss which again is wrong as Ramadoss is his father's name and not surname.

Surnames or family names

Many South Indians also use a family name.

Last names are not common among the Tamil people, but most of the rest of India uses a family name.

Invented family names such as that of Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajesh Pilot.
The Anglo last name of Anglo-Indians - descendants of British and Indian parents.
Portuguese-Goan last names such as Fernandes.
Third- or later generation expatriate Indians and others who now have last names that were the given names of one of their ancestors or have intermarried enough to ensure that the last names are not caste/religion names in disguise.

Tamil names

Many Tamils use a "vilasam". That gives the initials (a syllable in Tamil) of the person's paternal ancestors up to, say, seven generations. This keeps every one readily identifiable. For example, in a reasonably sized community Mu.Ko.Ka.Mu.Tha.Er. Ganesh would be the cousin of Mu.Ko.Ka.Mu.Tha.Ka. Ganesh.

Nowadays, the complete "vilasam" is used only on important occasions - more commonly, only the first initial (father's) is used. Caste names are rarely used, since they are not unique.

The father's first name will be the family name (or the last name) of a person in some Tamil communities. This is because most Tamil family names are the caste names, and it is not common to use the caste name, especially with the younger generation. Unique family names are hidden in the sub-caste which is called "Kulam" or "Kothiram".

Eg: Chinnakavanam Vittal Babu Hariharan, where Hariharan is the name of the person, Vittal Babu is the name of the father and Chinnakavanam is the name of the village from where they have originated.

Malayali (Kerala) names

Most Keralites, like in the case of Telugus, have a family name. Most of the family names are of obscure origin, but many have geographical origins -- e.g., Vadakkedath (from the North), Meleveettil (from the upper house) etc. Traditionally the full names followed one of two patterns:

Family name followed by Given name followed usually by the caste name or title. This was the common pattern (for men and women) among the upper-caste Hindus, especially of Malabar and Cochin. Examples: Vallathol Narayana Menon (Vallathol is the family name or tharavad name, Narayana(n) is the given name and Menon is the caste name), Olappamanna Subramanian Nambudiri, Erambala Krishnan Nayanar, etc. Sometimes the caste name/title was omitted, e.g., Konnoth Karunakaran (where the caste name Marar has been omitted). In the case of women the caste name/title was, traditionally, always omitted, instead the title "Amma" was frequently used, e.g., Nalappat Balamani Amma whose brother was Nalappat Narayana Menon. Quite often the family name will have more than one part to it, e.g., Elankulam Manakkal Sankaran Namboodiripad, M T Vasudevan Nair, etc. The family name is usually initialled, the given name is sometimes initialled (never when there is no caste name following) and the caste name (if present) is never initialled. This is completely arbitrary. So we have as common forms Vallathol Narayana Menon, C Achutha Menon, E K Nayanar and P Bhaskaran (here Bhaskaran is the given name; the caste name, Menon in this case, has been omitted).
Family name followed by Father's given name followed by Given name. This is common among the rest of the population. For example most traditional Christian names followed this pattern. Usually the Family name and Father name were initialled. In case of (Hindu) women "Amma" was frequently used (as in the previous case). Examples include K M Mani, K G George, V S Achuthanandan, K R Gowri Amma.

Much of these traditional naming patterns have now disappeared. The family names are usually not included nowadays (this can probably be attributed to the decline of the joint families or tharavads). The most common patterns nowadays is to have given names, followed by the father's given name (e.g., Sunil Narayanan or Anil Varghese) or caste name (e.g., Anup Nair). Sometimes (especially in the case of women) both the Fathers and Mothers given names are used as part of the name, e.g., L Athira Krishna. It is also not uncommon for the village of origin to be use in lieu of the family name, especially in South Kerala, e.g., Kavalam Narayana Panicker, where Kavalam is a village in Alapuzha district.

It should be observed that many of the so-called Christian surnames such as Varghese or Kuruvilla are in fact, properly speaking, not surnames at all. They are just given names. Due to the modern shift towards complete names (as mentioned in the preceding paragraph) these have become de facto surnames in many cases.

Kannada names

Kannada names might include place names, clan/title/caste names, father's names along with person's own name. The rules generally followed when combinations of the names used;

The place name should always come first.

eg. Kadidal Manjappa, where Kadidal is place name and Manjappa is person's name.

Father's name should always come second.

eg. Kuppalli Venkatappa Puttappa, where Kuppalli is place name, Venkatappa is father's name and Puttappa is person's name.

Initials from fathers Name and Place name

e.g Adnoor Bheemappa Narendra, where Adnoor is place name, Bheemappa is father's name and Narendra is person's name. Adnoor and Bheemappa can be initialled resulting in the name "A.B.Narendra".

The clan/title/caste names (generally called surnames) must come last.

eg. Panemangalooru Ramesh Shenoy, Panemangalooru is place name, Ramesh is person's name and Shenoy is the surname. eg. Satish Ramanath Hegde, Satish is person's name, Ramanath is father's name and Hegde is the title(surname).

Rare cases of ancestral housenames can also be found, and they follow the rule for place names.

However, if a person wants to go by only his/her name, there is a tendency in official circles to forcibly add extra names (generally, the place names).

Malaysian Indian Names - South Indian Origin

Most ethnic Indians in Malaysia trace their ancestral origin to South India. In Malaysia, the general naming format format for Indians is X son of Y or X daughter of Y. The term 'son of' is ANAK LELAKI (abbreviated to A/L in ID documents) in the Malay Language and the term 'daughter of' is ANAK PEREMPUAN (abbreviated to A/P in ID documents) in the Malay Language.

In the British colonial days, male Indian names would employ the connective term S/O (son of) and female Indian names D/O (daughter of) respectively, and these terms are still in common use in Singapore.

Example: Murugan the son of Vellupillai would appear as MURUGAN A/L VELLUPILLAI in Malaysian ID Card (MyKad) in the name field and the Malaysian Passport.

In the eyes of authorities in the West, the connective term A/L (son of in the Malay Language)appears deceptively similar to the Arabic prefix 'Al' which appears in numerous Surnames/ Family Names of people of Arab descent.

Using the example above, MURUGAN A/L VELLUPILLAI would also arrange his name in such a way that his father's name become his initial and his given name appears to be his Surname/ Last Name: V. MURUGAN. This practice is similar to the name format of a very famous South Indian writer R. K. Narayan (R - Place of Origin: RASIPURAM , K - Father's Name: KRISHNASWAMI). Since most Malaysian Indians are today born in Malaysia, usually only the father's name appears as the initials.

However an increasing number of Malaysian Indians are migrating to the West, and they have begun using their father's name as the Last Name to avoid confusion. Therefore, Murugan the son of Vellupillai would simply go as MURUGAN VELLUPILLAI or M. VELLUPILLAI in the West. Malaysian Indian females sometimes take their husband's given name as their Surname or Last Name.

East and west Indian names

Bengali names

In West Bengal, especially amongst Hindus, it is common to have a first and last name as well as a Daak naam, or a nickname, which is not listed in official documents.

Gujarati and Marathi names

In Gujarat and Maharashtra , the naming system is very similar to the first-middle-last format followed in the western world, i.e., "Sunil Manohar Gavaskar." Here, "Sunil" is the first name of the person, "Manohar" is the father's name, which is often abbreviated as an initial, and "Gavaskar" is the last or family name. Traditionally, women take their husband's name as their middle name, in addition to adopting his family name. In Maharashtra sometimes a male newborn is named after his grandfather's name.

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