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 and may come from epics. In Hindu culture, names are often chosen based on astrological and numerological principles. It is believed that a person's name can influence their destiny, and astrologers may be consulted to ensure a name suits the individual's birth chart. India's population speaks a wide variety of languages, and many religions of the world have a following in India. This variety makes for subtle differences in names and naming styles.
In some cases, an 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).
Many children are given three names, sometimes as a part of a religious teaching.
Research suggests that many Indians have officially adopted caste-neutral last names to mitigate historical inequalities. Some of India’s most famous celebrities have changed their names. For example, Amitabh Bachchan was originally named Inquilab Srivastava, Akshay Kumar was named Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia, and Dilip Kumar was originally named Muhammad Yusuf Khan. In many parts of India, the practice of name "doubling" is now wide-spread, i.e. a citizen adopts a “caste-neutral” last name for school, work and official settings, but retains a traditional name for personal interaction or to access certain state schemes.
Pronunciation
When written in Latin script, Indian names may use the vowel characters to denote sounds different from conventional American or British English. Although some languages, like Kannada or Tamil, may have different vowel sounds, the ones used in most major Indian languages are represented in this table along with typical English transcriptions. +IPAə/ɔaːɪiːʊuːeːɛː/əɪ/ɔioɔː/əʊ/ouEnglish transcriptionaaieeuooeaioau/ou
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/ (as in Tenginkai or Rohit), especially when they occur in the onset of a word. As an example, the Indian name 'Dev' would not have its first consonant pronounced as in the American name 'Dave'. Similarly the name 'Tarun' would not have its first consonant sounded as in 'Tom'.
The letter 'h' is used to represent aspirated consonants. So, in the names 'Khare', 'Ghanshyam', 'Kaccha', 'Jhumki', 'Vitthal', 'Ranchodh', 'Siddharth', 'Phaneesh', and 'Bhanu,' the 'h' means the sound before it should be pronounced with a strong outward breath (see Aspirated consonant for more on this). These names are more likely to be found in places that speak an Indo-Aryan language like Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi, or Bundeli.
Names by culture
Assamese Assamese names follow the First name – Middle name – Surname or First name – Surname pattern. The Paik system used by various Assamese kingdoms, most notably the Ahom, granted men titles depending on the number of paiks they could command, and these titles are often still used as surnames today. Titles such as Bora (20), Saika (100), Hazarika (1000) imply that their ancestors commanded 20, 100 or 1000 men. The topmost ranks were granted titles such as Phukan, Barua and Rajkhowa. Some titles, such as Phukan, derive from Tai Ahom rather than Assamese. These surnames can be held by people from any community. For instance, in Binanda Chandra Barua, Binanda is the first name, Chandra the middle name and Barua the last name, indicating his ancestors were high in the Paik system.
There are some community-specific surnames such as Gogoi (Ahom) and Sarma (Brahmin) (ex: Himanta Biswa Sarma). Tribal communities such as Boro, Dimasa and Karbi follow a similar naming scheme, although their surnames are generally clan names.
Bengali
Bengali names follow the First name – Middle name – Surname pattern, as seen with Subhas Chandra Bose.
Bengali Brahmin surnames include Acharjee, Banerjee, Bagchi, Bhaduri, Bhattacharjee, Chakraborty, Chatterjee, Ganguly, Goswami, Ghoshal, Lahiri, Maitra, Mukherjee, Sanyal, Kanjilal, Bhattashali, Putatundu etc. A Brahmin name is often the name of the clan or gotra, but can be an honorific, such as Chakraborty or Bhattacharya.
Common Baidya surnames are Sengupta, Dasgupta, Duttagupta, Debgupta, Sen, Gupta, Das Sharma, and Sen Sharma.
Bengali Kayastha surnames include Basu, Bose, Dutta, Ghosh, Choudhury, Roy Chowdhury, Ray, Guha, Mitra, Sinha/Singha, Pal, De/Dey/Deb/Dev, Palit, Chanda/Chandra, Das, Rakshit, Sen, Dam, Dhar, Mallik, Kar, Nandi, Nag, Som, etc.
Odia Odia names follow the First name – Middle name – Surname or First name – Surname pattern.
Odia surnames come from caste based on human occupation. For example, the common surnames Kar, Mohapatra, and Dash (as opposed to Das) are Brahmin surnames. Similarly, Mishra, Nanda, Rath, Satpathy, Panda, Panigrahi, and Tripathy are all Brahmin surnames.
Mohanty, Das, Choudhury, Ray, Kanungo, Mangaraj, Bohidar, Bakshi, Patnaik, Samantaray, Routray, Mahasenapati, Srikarana, Chhotray and Das Mohapatra are Karan surnames. Others are Samant, Singhar, Sundaraya, Jagdev, Baliarsingh, Harichandan, Mardraj, Srichandan, Pratihari, Paikray, Patasani, Parida, Samal, Sahu, Nayak, and Muduli.
Goan Konkani people inhabiting Goa, and also Konkan regions of Karnataka and Maharashtra, use First name – Middle name – Village name/Surname pattern. Generally, the first name is followed by the father's name, though this is now mostly observed by Hindus, who are traditionally patriarchal.
Village names were used only after the arrival of the Portuguese, when the people migrated from their ancestral villages. A suffix kar or hailing from was attached to the village name.
Many of the originally Hindu residents were converted to Catholicism by the Portuguese. Almost all of the Konkani Catholics have Portuguese surnames like Rodrigues, Fernandes, Pereira and D'Souza. Catholic families belonging to the Roman Catholic Brahmin (Bamonn) caste use lusophonised versions of Hindu surnames like Prabhu, Bhat, etc.
Gujarati Gujarati names follow a pattern of First name – Father's first name – Surname. In many Gujarati households, a paternal aunt has the honour of naming her brother's child. Traditionally, the suffix -bhai or -ben is added to the end of a given name to show respect for men and women respectively, but this practice is uncommon in contemporary times, and many are choosing to remove it. After marriage, a woman can take her husband's patronymic or his given name as her new middle name. The surname or family name is derived from place names, trades or occupations, religious or caste names, or nicknames. Given names and their suffixes differ based on sex and religion. Examples: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Mohandas is his given name, Karamchand is his father's name, and Gandhi is his surname. Jashodaben Narendrabhai Modi: Jashoda is her given name, -ben is the suffix, Narendrabhai is her husband's name, and Modi is her surname.
Traditionally, names were often borrowed from religion, but in modern times, names are borrowed from literature, film, and politicians. Sanskrit tatsama names are also increasing as a source for names to the detriment of tadbhava and deshya names, especially amongst tribal groups. In modern times, there has also been the creation of pleasant-sounding but meaningless names, as well as the borrowing of foreign names among English-educated metropolitans due to India's history with Britain. Mistry states these processes in name changes are due to social factors where members of the lower strata of Gujarati society adopt Sanskrit names in mimicry of higher strata, who must then create new names from native or foreign sources to maintain status. Another factor he states is the declining religiosity of modern generations.
Hindi Belt This naming custom is prevalent throughout the Hindi Belt, and is also followed also by groups in this region who may not speak a Hindi-related language variety as their first language such as Gonds or Santals. Northern naming customs follow a standard pattern of First name – Middle name – Surname. Many times the middle name will be appended onto the first name, or not exist at all. Sometimes middle name would even be father's first name. The surname is most commonly a caste-related name however, there are some caste-neutral surnames like Kumar. For example: Bhajan Lal Sharma (Bhajan is his first name, Lal is a middle name, and Sharma is a caste surname). Many women, especially in rural areas, take on the surname Devi (meaning Goddess) or Kumari (princess) when they are married (ex. Phoolan Devi, known as Phoolan Mallah before marriage). Muslims in North India use Islamic naming conventions.
Kannada Kannada names vary by region as follows.
North Karnataka follows the First name – Father's first name – Surname order. This system is also found in other parts of Karnataka.
Surnames are drawn from the names of places, food items, dresses, temples, type of people, platforms, cities, professions, and so on. Surnames are drawn from many other sources.
Katti as a suffix is used for soldiers while Karadis is related to local folk art. Surnames according to trade or what they traditionally farm include Vastrad (piece of cloth), Kubasad (blouse), Menasinkai (chili), Ullagaddi (onion), Limbekai, Ballolli (garlic), Tenginkai (coconut), Byali (pulse), and Akki (rice). Surnames based on house include Doddamani (big house), Hadimani (house next to the road), Kattimani (house with a platform in its front), Bevinmarad (person having a big neem tree near his house), and Hunasimarad (person having a big tamarind tree near his house). A carpenter will have Badigar as a surname, while Mirjankar, Belagavi, Hublikar, and Jamkhandi are surnames drawn from places. Angadi (shop), Amavasya (new moon day), Kage (crow), Bandi (bullock cart), Kuri (sheep), Kudari (horse), Toppige (cap), Beegadkai (key), Pyati (market), Hanagi (comb), and Rotti (bread) are some other surnames.
In coastal Karnataka, the surnames are different in different regions. Surnames like Hegde and Hebbar belong to the Brahmin community, while other titles like Ballal, Shetty, and Rai are mostly used by the landed Bunt community. Names in coastal Karnataka have both systems Village name–Father's name–Personal name–Surname and Personal name – Father's name – Surname.
Names in South Karnataka follow Village name – Father's name – Personal name – Surname. Examples: H[aradanahalli] D[evegowda] Kumaraswamy: Haradanahalli is his native village, Devegowda is his father's name, and Kumaraswamy is his given name. T[umkur] M[ahesh] Pranav: Tumkur is his native town, Mahesh is his father's name, and Pranav is his given name.
For married women, it is Husband's name – First name or the opposite (ex. Sumalatha Ambareesh, where Ambareesh is her husband's name).
In South Karnataka, caste names are not common except among the higher castes. Kannada Brahmins have surnames like Rao, Murthy, Poojari, and Bhat. The title Gowda was a title given to any village headman, irrespective of caste, and was written as an appendage to the person's name. For example Siddaramaiah's father belonged to the Kuruba community but was called Siddarame Gowda. Nowadays it is mostly used as a Vokkaliga surname. Most people in South Karnataka, regardless of caste, do not use caste surnames.
Kashmiri Kashmiri names often follow the naming convention First name – Middle name (optional) – Family name. (For example: Jawahar Lal Nehru)
Nicknames often replace family names. Hence, some family names like Razdan and Nehru may very well be derived originally from the Kaul family tree.' Toward Freedom: An Autobiography of JawaharLal Nehru', the first prime minister of India. Chapter III - Descent from Kashmir, p. 16. Nehru Says: