Why do Tamils take their dads first name?

Perhaps most revolutionary of all — it saw people drop their caste names as surnames. Instead, people took their father’s first name as their surname. As first names were relatively fluid and intermixed across castes — this had the effect of instantly obfuscating the background of people.

Why do South Indians have initials?

In south India, normally the first letter of the initials indicates the native place of the person and the second letter the name of the person’s father and the person’s real name is pushed to the end. The culprit behind this system is the person’s school leaving certificate.

Why do Tamilians don’t have surname?

#1 The Reason. Caste based surnames slowly started becoming popular in 20th century. Their dire need to follow the pan-Indian culture probably resulted in surnames like – Iyer, Iyengar, Thevar, Pillai, Chettiyar, Mudhaliyar, Nadar, Moopanar etc. And therefore, their are tons of Tamilians without a surname.

How do Tamils name their children?

Tamils generally have no family name. Their first name will be their father’s personal name, followed by their own name (e.g. Alagaratnam Rasiah).

Why did Tamils move to Sri Lanka?

Like the Portuguese and Dutch, the British colonial period saw the transportation and migration of Tamils to Sri Lanka, but on a much larger scale. Indian Tamils were brought to Sri Lanka as indentured labourers during the 19th and 20th centuries to work on coffee, tea and rubber plantations owned by the British.

Why do so many Indian Americans have non-traditional last names?

So a lot of second-gen/third-gen Indian-Americans have somewhat non traditional last names, because their last name is actually an amalgamation of their father’s or grandfather’s first name and middle name. This isn’t the case with first-gen/immigrant Indian-Americans, because the issue was cleared up and now we get to keep our last names:).

How do you describe your name properly in India?

There is no single system of describing one’s name properly in India. The system that the British administrators introduced was 1. Given name, 2. Father’s name and 3. Surname. They were to be used as first name, second name and third name respectively. For example: Mohandas Karmachand Gandhi.

Why do some people have only their father’s names?

People did used to have surnames, which was mostly associated with their caste or village name along with their father’s name in the front. But due to high caste discrimination, people stopped using their surnames in and around early 1900’s and started adopting only their father names.

Why do Telugu people have their father’s name as their initials?

Telugu people do not have this tradition of having father’s name as their initials, We have initials/surnames which usually refer to the village or a place where our ancestors belong to. Like in my name ‘Bodhanapu Vishnu’ – ‘Bodhanapu’ is my surname which probably refers to an area called ‘Bodhan’ (Telangana) or some other similar sounding place.