Talk:Indian name

This page has been created as suggested by 3 users in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Indian_family_name Please edit, correct, clarify, and comment and make this page useful and interesting. Doctor Bruno 08:11, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

About Examples
Most of the examples will be from South Indian names (because I know that).. You are free to give other examples also. Also much has been taken from http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bridge/1771/Desh/nms.html Doctor Bruno 09:55, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I have corrected the Tamil naming convention section. The example illustration for patronym and inverted patronym was wrong! Also, I changed the example for inverted patronym as the reference was to a popular person who is seemingly using the regular patronym convention. --Prakashchandrasekaran (talk) 12:54, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

In Kerala, the convention of children getting the name of their grand parents is not limited to Palakkad Iyer community. In Central Kerala also it was prevalent. I got the name of my paternal grandfather and my younger brother that of my maternal grandfather. But to my knowledge the system used to be different for females. the eldest was to get the name of maternal grandmother and the next the paternal grandmother. The third male child was to get the name of the father's brother and female child to get the mothers sister.

These conventions are not used now by most people. People have even named their children as 'One' and 'Two'.

Regarding the convention of females changing names after marriage, it may be said that this is probably a new trend in India copied from British. It is also noticed that many women, use the husband's first name as their surname. --K N Unni (talk) 13:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Copyedit and Fact checking
I fixed the grammar and style of the article. It still seems cumbersome to me. A more streamlined introduction into naming conventions is needed. Also, if someone who is familiar with Indian names could check to make sure everything is still factually accurate. Kerowyn 03:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have added few points (edited by you) which are needed to give a comprehensive picture Doctor Bruno 02:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Women's Names
One piece of information that ought to be added for each language group/religion is how women's names work, e.g. whether a women in that culture changes her name on marriage.Bill 22:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Language group? I think you mean ethnic group or region. And women adopting their husband's surname after marriage is pretty standard 172.129.38.235 (talk) 03:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Ayan

Introduction
"Indians greatly believe in mythology and they name their kids with mythological names. They go for epics also to name their kids. Some people have their family name along with their name." These sentences from the introduction are confusing. I'll try to edit them, but someone who knows more about Indian names should make sure I'm correct. Flutefreek 05:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Indian diaspora
As a suggestion before I make an edit, I was hoping to add a section on naming conventions for Indian diaspora. There are references to Malaysia and to 3r'd generation immigrants in this article, which could perhaps be collected under a new section. A further example that comes to mind in the same category is that of the Indo-Caribbean population, whose names where changed (forcibly? - debated )before they were taken as slaves to the West Indies. Shivanarain Chanderpaul - would have come from Shiva Narayan Chander .Another example is the name of a friend of mine Shawn Rambrath whose given Hindu name is Roshan shortened to Shawn and the surname lengthens to Ram Bharat.The Mystic 16:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Another point that comes to mind on a different note, is that trying to relate South Indian naming conventions to western conventions with terms such as second name, surname or middle name , maybe be inappropriate because of 'joint writing' in dravidian languages , ie the ability to write distinct words ( or names) together as one continous word. eg Muthappan is Mutthu Appan or Kunhiraman is Kunhi Raman ( Kunhi meaning small or Kunji in Tamil, is similar to the present day usage of junior as in Jack Junior).The Mystic 16:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Be bold :). &brvbar; Reisio 01:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup
I have just cleaned up this article a bit and tried to put it in a more sensible order. I am sure more improvements can be made. I removed a few things that I know to be false - for instance, the name "Nehru" was certainly not invented by Motilal Nehru when he moved to Allahabad! It is well documented in any biography of Jawaharlal Nehru (including his autobiography, IIRC) that the name "Nehru" was a probable corruption of "Nehari" (canal) and was adopted by that family in Kashmir many generations before Motilal Nehru was even born. I also think some of the examples could be improved. There were too many examples of Sikh names (I have reduced this to just Manmohan Singh, as India's most prominent Sikh figure), but most of the examples for South Indian names appear to be either obscure or made-up. It would be much better to have examples of real names of prominent figures if possible, on grounds of Wikipedia's No Original Research policy, which this article is in danger of violating anyway. -- TinaSparkle 09:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you, TinaSparkle, for your efforts. I just tagged the article in need of cleanup to capture your, "I am sure more improvements can be made."  I am a U.S. software developer working with some people in Chennai, so I like to understand what I can about their circumstances, including names.  I did not understand the purpose of the numbered list at the beginning of the surnames section, for example.  I would copy-edit myself, but I'm afraid I would change the meaning until it is outrageous.  -- ke4roh 01:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I just altered the passage on Indian Christian names for syntax and conventions, in hopes that it will make the information more clear and concise. I did not, however, change, add, or remove any of the factual content of the section.Alwaysasking (talk) 00:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Map(s)
I just tagged this article in need of one or more maps because it would help me to understand the geography of names in India. I have met several Indians who asked the name of another Indian friend of mine so as to determine where the latter is from, indicating to me that an approximate map of names to places might be possible. I saw a map of the top 50 British surnames, and perhaps something similar might be possible, though I realize the diversity in India might make it more practical to render a series of maps for regions using different naming systems, for example. -- ke4roh 01:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Forced Shortening and Inversion of Names
An external influence on Indian (and other) naming systems in the West is the preference of clerks and data entry people for limiting names to two words: often only the first and last words of a string will be recorded at a hospital or clinic, as "Christian name" and "Surname" respectively, which may lead to confusion later when things like laboratory reports have to be matched to persons in places with large Indian or Pakistani populations. This is not just a problem for Indians: John Albert Smith and John Alfred Smith would both go down as John Smith.

In the case of Sikhs, who may retain sub-caste names in the UK whereas their Indian relatives may drop them for egalitarian reasons, this would mean losing the "Singh" or "Kaur" resulting in a completely unisex name on the file.

A similar ethnocentricity may be built into databases, such as Access, which may force everyone into the American mould of first name + middle initial + surname when printing out names.

Another cause of confusion is the insistence of officials on identifying the "surname" and then putting it first, which also causes confusion when the subject has a two-part personal name only.

Officials faced with a short single name, or one not overlapping with a parent's, may put the last part of that parent's name down as the child's surname, leading to anomalies such as a boy apparently surnamed "Begum" on his record. NRPanikker 16:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

What order are names written in?
Hi, I came to this article looking for information on the order that Indian names are written in; is it usually Firstname Lastname as in most English speaking countries, or Lastname Firstname as in China and Hungary, or something else - and does this vary by region or religious heritage?

Could anyone here help me out? :-) Moyabrit (talk) 13:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The most accurate answer would be that there is no "usual order," even in a small area. This is a problem for librarians and others who wish to index other people's names. If they select the last word as "Lastname," that may or may not be the one that others would look under. Even if the person has a hereditary "surname," it may usually be abbreviated, and could occur anywhere in the name: beginning, middle or end. It may not be what the person is called by officials or employers. NRPanikker (talk) 17:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no specif order of writing names in India, neither are there any common conventions on naming. This has created problems. In this age of using computer for several purposes, people creates forms with 'first', 'middle, 'last' name format, without specifying the meaning of these terms (Income Tax authorities created this confusion more than anyone else as they did not provide any provision to write anything before the first name). Many person's name starts with the family name/village name or their father's name. Many times they get abbreviated as first name and family name with the result that they get called by their father's or family's name. I know it very well as i myself am a victim of it. My name Krishnan Narayanan Unni became Krishnan Unni, (which is my father's name) in the hands of my employers. The Indian passport applications does not use the work 'first name' and allows all your names to be written in the natural order. Income Tax Department requires the first name first (which in my case is Narayanan) when I asked them where I write the initial 'K' (which they wanted expanded)they told me to write it as the middle name. So my income tax records show my name as Narayanan Krishnan Unni which is my father's name in its natural order

--K N Unni (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

THE NAME UPADHYA
Hi everyone, I moved the name Upadhya into Karnataka. The Jammu and Kashmir (Basically a lot of North India name is actually Upadhyaya. Please change the Upadhyaya name if necessary but leave the Upadhya name where it is. It is genuinely Karntakan. I should know, I have the surname. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.108.50.217 (talk) 07:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Lists of names
Is there any reason for this article to attempt the making of exhaustive lists of names and their classification into political states ? It appears that there are sociology texts that can be used to cite sources for many of the facts in the article. I am sure the contributors here are scholarly enough to add citations to content and perhaps this needs to keep the focus on naming schemes and patterns in general. Shyamal (talk) 05:59, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Why my entiries are deleted twice now?
Hello there, Just needs litle explanation as to what can I do so my entry about a WIKI site on Indian name is not removed any more. There is this cool non for profit site www.NamesETC.org that display and allow to edit, Indian names. I created an entry for this site twice on this page. Unfortuantely it was removed everytime without any reasoning.

Note that there are several other entries of similar kind there already. There are external links to the site that has Indian names, then why only my site should be removed?

Feel free to let me know at Admin@NamesETC.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.223.20 (talk) 20:42, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I am the one who removed it, and I did give a short reason for removing them in my edit summaries for this article and the other two that I removed it on   . The reason I removed it is because WP:ELNO, which explains some types of external links to avoid, specifically states: Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. This links seems to fit the criteria and, therefore, should not be included. Cheers!  Apparition11  Complaints / Mistakes  23:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I just read the policy, I understand that my site doesn't look like an extention to the information already available at this page. But what I am curious is that other sites that are listed are mere advertisement of their site and they are worse than mine. In the way because mine is completly non for profit and theirs are commercial. Please let me know if you would like me to adjust a part of my site that can give a place to be mentioned at this page. Or please explain why other commercial sites are listed while mine is mercilessly removed. Thanks!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.223.20 (talk) 03:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I took a quick glance at the other sites and most of them are awfully full of advertising. I couldn't get the first one on the list to load. IMO, the list should be trimmed down to a couple of good sites that don't contain so much advertising. I'm sorry, but as long as your site fits the criteria of WP:ELNO, it really shouldn't be included. Apparition11  Complaints / Mistakes  04:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok so either all the external sites should be excluded or you should let me add mines, My site have very minimum non graphical google ad. Also it is non for profit, best of all its format is exact same with wikipedia. I dont understand the reason why others sites which are full of ad and commercial sites an stay while mine can't. Please either remove all or let me add a line there. Thanks!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.223.20 (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They probably should be removed, but I wanted to wait and see if any other editors wanted to chime in. Also, please see SPAM. Just because there are some links that shouldn't be included, doesn't mean that we should add more links that shouldn't. Apparition11  Complaints / Mistakes  12:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Totally understand this, for a random visitor to this page, it gives a notion that WIKIPedia recommanding those links. And they led to bellieve as it those were standard. While there are better ones for some reasons can't be included. Is it ok if I were to remove? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.223.20 (talk) 17:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you are free to be bold and remove them. Of course, if you are reverted, you should follow the bold, revert, discuss cycle. I agree that they should be removed. I prefer to give others time to chime in before virtually blanking the section, but if you were to do so, I would not be the one who would revert. Apparition11  Complaints / Mistakes  22:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * (Update) I saw that you were reverted. I reverted that revert simply because it was a mistaken vandalism revert. Obviously, I won't revert again if someone reverts me. These are the links that were removed for reference:


 * IndianHinduNames.com Only Hindu and Indian baby names with the meanings.
 * Punjabi Baby Names Most popular list of modern and unique Punjabi Baby Names.
 * Indian Names Indian baby names with the meanings, history and origin.
 * BabyNamesIndia.com Indian and Hindu baby names with Sanskrit meanings.
 * Indian Babynames A collection of Indian male and female names with meanings and also searchable atabase.
 * Searchable database of Indian Baby Names
 * Indian Baby Names Browse Indian baby names by Nakshtra, Rashi, Sanskrit words, mythology and more.
 * Thanks. Apparition11  Complaints / Mistakes  12:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

In tamilnadu wikipedia missed one important cast name KONAR or yadav they are very popular in south and noth district. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neemasen yadav (talk • contribs) 10:41, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

British 'patronymics'
There is no system of British patronymics. British names consist of a first name followed by a family name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.75.228.252 (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

removed name table
this is probably just junk that doesn't belong on wiki, but i'm leaving this here if something can be done with it.

and also this was floating homeless at the bottom:

These are Telugu surnames thus this is Telangana because AP is already taken

Krothapalli, pavuluri,Pesala,Reddy,Alluri,Potti, Komaram ,Marri ,Tanguturi ,Kaloji,Jalagam ,Puchalapalli, Pingali,Burgula ,Banoth, Meka, Ramavath,Nandamuri,Vasireddy,Kamarapu, Samarla, Devineni, Vangaveeti, Paritala, Konidela, Nimmakayala, Daggubati, Atluri, Barlapudi, Vokshani, Chevuri, Ravuru, Sirugudi, Chandamalla, Mamuduri, Kodhati, Jakkala, Pillarishetty, Appani, Gayam, Jasti, Vemulapalli, Anumula, Asuri, Nallanchakravarthula, Alaparthi, Gunti, Danaboyina, Gadde, Paila , Ethrouthu, Gurrla, Boini, Ankem, Karnati, Kalluri, Medam, Ginjupalli, Kadiyala, Kavuri, Kotla, Kondragunta, Thupalli, Raavi, Mandava, Chiguluri, Mukkamala, Musunuri, Gurram, Vangala, Yarlagadda, Marella, Maddala, Anantaneni, Ponna, Gollapinni, Mummidi, Anumolu, Bulusu, Nalluru, Bhagavatula, Chaganti, Chaparala, Cherukuri,Garudadri, Mullapudi, Gollapudi, Tanikella, Kovelamudi, Sripada, Vempati, Nutulapati, Nomula, Davuluri, Vemuri, Allu, Tunuguntla, Thanneeru, Lakamalla, Damacherla, Thalari, Marri, Pati, Akula, Chinthamalla, Munnangi, Mamidala, Mandaloju, Sreegiri, Srishti, Vundavalli, Vanapalli, Varre, Ragampudi, Mutyala, Pinnamaneni, Pendyala, Panuganti, Ponnala, Podile, Potini, Kolli, Guntupalli, Yadlapati, Yalamanchi, Raavi, Jagarlamudi, Vadlamudi, Polisetty, Gali, Chebrolu, Nidumolu, Gundapaneni, Malladi, Achanta, Yellapragada, Akkineni, Atluri, Gandhamaneni, BellamKonda, Kakumani, Madanu, Gunda, Charugundla, Tulabandu, Vakalapudi, Thota, Eguri, Pasala, Sheikh, Mohammed, Rebbapragada, Chagantipati, Gorthi, Metta, Nara, Somarothu, Sajja, Gaddam, Yandamuri, Kunapareddy, Neeradi,Dhepalli, Annimalle,Dachepalli. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.201.33.151 (talk) 06:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Oriya Names
There is an incomplete sentence at the beginning ending in "...[fami]ly and friends." Please update this text when you can. 204.92.65.10 (talk) 14:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

removing all unreferenced information
(which is basically everything on the page).

As with all articles about India, people apparently think they can just stumble on this page and add some random factoid about their village or family off the top of their head. The result is what we get here: An article that is worse than useless.

This is not how things work at all. We want a coherent article entirely based on verifiable references. WP:V,WP:CITE,WP:RS.

Sometimes the only thing that can be done is starting over. This is just a heads up that I will remove all information on this page that isn't directly referenced to some identifiable source. --dab (𒁳) 14:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Did it help? —Tamfang (talk) 19:41, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * This reminds me of the ancient Greek philosopher who decided one day that he would only say what he could be certain of: eventually he was reduced to silently pointing with a finger. That would be the outcome of the Marie Kondo process of which our deletionists are so enamoured. For them, nothing is more satisfying than a thorough evacuation, at the cost of removing the "encyclo-" element from our "encyclopaedia." NRPanikker (talk) 11:13, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

the name PADMINI DALAI in odia names.
Please correct the odia name Padmini Dalai. It is a full name of a lady,not a surname. So kindly correct that. And also this language is not 'oriya' ,its been changed to 'odia' officially. So please correct that also. Thank you Ramya rath (talk) 16:05, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Guido?

 * In Gujarat, family names ending in the suffix 'vala' or 'walla' may refer to the place where a person resides when written on wedding invitations (concotri), when listing members of the family. Someone who did not live locally, for example, someone from London may have his surname put down as 'Guidowalla' just to describe the fact they reside there . . ..

Guidowalla = Londoner? Is this vandalism, or an allusion going over my head? Whatever, I rewrote the passage and removed that example. —Tamfang (talk) 19:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Given Name is not synonymous with First Name
Legally, in India, Given Name is not same as First Name. Given Name in Indian passports is explicitly First Name, Middle Name. Maybe, it is better to replace the words Given Name in the article at most places with First Name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Solomonsunder (talk • contribs) 09:21, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Possible vandalism
I'm not very active. But, looks like some vandalism is going on here. Previous version seems to be completely wiped off now. I vaguely remember that previous versions were covered in some Indian newspapers and magazines, especially The Hindu. Also, previous version was very useful to decode correct name of Viswanathan Anand, P. Chidambaram, etc. Someone please take care and restore these useful contents. Rrjanbiah (talk) 10:49, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * All Unsourced and Unreliable info went out. Check history. Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:48, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * None of them were unreliable and were covered in The Hindu as well. Especially, the naming issues are frequently covered in The Hindu https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Athehindu.com+initials+passport --Rrjanbiah (talk) 08:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation Section
The pronunciation section is an absolute mess. It's basically incomprehensible. Anybody know where to even begin fixing it? I can't find a good starting point and I don't know any of the languages generally used in India other than English so I don't really want to mess with inserting the IPA there. Acolossus &#124; Talk &#124; Contributions 20:12, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Given/surname better than first/last as parameter defaults for citation templates?
Hi. Over at Help_talk:Citation_Style_1 we are thinking about if it would be beneficial for the reliable entry of names in citations to switch the default parameters from the first/last pair of variants to the given/surname pair for the name parameters (author, editor, contributor, translator, interviewer). All parameter variants would remain available, just the order, in which they were listed in the documentation / help, would change (and thereby indirectly also what would be picked up as defaults by some bots and VE). This could avoid the potential confusion of mixed up first and last names when entering names in Eastern name order at least for freshly entered citations.

However, would it create new problems elsewhere?

Hoping, that this is read by experts on Indian names, I would like to invite you to the discussion to bring in an Indian perspective.

The local article mentions so many variants and does not seem to use the terms first name, last name, given name, family name, forename, surname consistently (which could be down to the variety of naming schemes in India, the differences from the Western naming schemes, or because different parts of the article were written by different authors with different backgrounds), so it leaves me a bit unconclusive on this. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 07:30, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Noone?
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:21, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Extra/Fewer letters
Why do some Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi people use different names with extra or fewer letters?

I've noticed it happens a lot, and they alternate between the 2 names themselves, depending on the subject.

For example there's a guy I've just stumbled across right now who works for the BBC, and does his own independent work for himself or other people, who's done various jobs over the last 7 years as a cinematographer, a grip, a cameraman, a technical operator, an editor, an archivist, an assistant floor manager, an art department assistant, a boom operator, a runner, a social media manager, a radio producer, a radio presenter etc

On his LinkedIn, and TalentManager profiles, along with a BBC news article video he appears in he uses the name Usmaan.

But on his Facebook, Twitter, and Wordpress profiles, along with a Televisual news article he uses the name Usman.

Which one is his real name, as in the name that he was born with?

Danstarr69 (talk) 04:08, 25 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Probably عثمان in Urdu. Either Usman or Usmaan would be a reasonable transliteration; neither necessarily more "real" than the other. See also Uthman (name). Basically, it's because the name in Roman letters is a rough approximation. For some languages written in non-Roman scripts, there's one or more standard ways of transliterating (e.g. Japanese has Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki & others); but often that doesn't help, because you could pick a different standard and end up with a different result. Why does this particular Usman use different transliterations in different places? No idea. - Ryk72 talk 04:23, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

horoscope name

 * In some cases, Indian birth name is different from their official name; the birth name starts with a selected name from the person's horoscope (based on the nakshatra or lunar mansion corresponding to the person's birth).

Interesting; could be clearer. Does "starts with a selected name" mean the lunar name precedes the rest of the name? or that it is used as a base for a compound, or similar? Or something else entirely?

Does "selected" imply that for each naxatra there are multiple names from which to choose? —Tamfang (talk) 05:31, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Surnames in South India :
Like the Telugu names, in general, the surname (mostly of a place, village, town etc.) is prevalent in the other Southern States too. For example, in Tamil Nadu : Arcot Lakshmanaswamy Mudaliar, Chetput Pattabhiraman Ramaswami Iyer, Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayan(aswami), Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Madurai Subramanian Swamy, etc. In some of such names, the second or middle name is usually the father's name. Similarly, In Karnataka : Haradanahalli Doddegowda Devegowda, Siddavanahalli Nijalingappa, Kengal Hanumanthiah, Kaddal Manjappa etc. Also in Kerala : Mambillikalthil Govindakumar Menon, Pinarayi Vijayan, Erambala Krishnan Nayanar, Ayillyath Kuttiari Gopalan Nambiyar etc. In some cases, the second or middle name could be mother's name (in Kerala State). S.guntur (talk) 22:48, 30 September 2023 (UTC)


 * For those of us who don't know a Dravidian place-name when we see one, could you edit this to italicize them? —Tamfang (talk) 23:17, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

English alveolar stops

 * Furthermore, the letters used in English /t/ and /d/ that are used to represent the retroflex stops /ʈ/ and /ɖ/, are also used to represent dental stops /t̪/ and /d̪/

There are no retroflex consonants in English. We have alveolar stops, which are between dental and retroflex, sounding to Indian ears more like the latter. —Tamfang (talk) 23:16, 6 June 2024 (UTC)