Surnames or Family Names
Family names are not common in Tamil Nadu, but most of the rest of India uses a family name. There are also certain people in Karnataka which do not use Family names anymore, however have initials to indicate their fathers name.
- Invented family names such as that of Rajesh Pilot.
- The English last name of Anglo-Indians - descendants of British and Indian parents.
- Portuguese-Goan last names, such as Fernandes.
- Arabic surnames of Muslims with ancestors embraced Islam and Muslims of mixed Arab and Indian descent.
Many South Indians also use a family name.
Common South Indian surnames/family names are:
Kumar, Rao, Murthy or Moorthi OR Moorthy, Shastri, Acharya,, Prasad, Swamy, Pillai
In Karnataka: Gowda, Nayak, Hegde and many north Karnataka families have the some surnames which are more popular in Maharastra such as Despande, Desmukh, Kulkarni,etc.
Mangalorean:(Tulu, Konkani) Shetty, Rai, Hegde, Bhat, Kamat, Pai, Bhandary, Upadhyay, Poojary, Moily, Alva, Ballal, Chowta, Naik, Kadamba, Hoysala, Maurya, Poonja
North Karnataka: Patil, Desai, Joshi, Kulkarni,Dodamani, Patil
In Andhra: Rao, Kumar, Chowdary, Reddy, Naidu, Raju, Varma, Shastri, Achari, Sharma, Setti!, Setty, Chetty, Gupta, Chari, Sharma, Bharadvaj
In Kerala: Namboodiri, Nair, Menon, Nambiar, Pannikar, Potti, Warrier, Kurian, Cherian, Varghese, Varma, Kutty...
In Tamil Nadu: Iyer, Chettiar, Chetty, Achari, Mudaliar, Subrahmyan, Pillai, Nayar, Sooriyaprakash, Devan, Ilaiya, Rajan, Veluram, Peera, ending in 'swamy/swami', ending in 'rajan', ending in 'pillai', Senthil, Murugan, Vijay, Sondharam, Sudhakar, Muthayan, Chandran, Jaison, starting with 'Jaya/Jeya', Jeyaramachandharan, Peeramaswamyan, Ranganatham, Kumar, Kular, Ikkuzhan, Adath, Murthiyrakkaventharan, Meena, ending with 'enthen/eenthen', ending with 'poosam/poosan'...
Read more about this topic: Indian Name, South Indian Names
Famous quotes containing the words family and/or names:
“A ball players got to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. Thats why no boy from a rich family ever made the big leagues.”
—Joe Dimaggio (b. 1914)
“In a time of confusion and rapid change like the present, when terms are continually turning inside out and the names of things hardly keep their meaning from day to day, its not possible to write two honest paragraphs without stopping to take crossbearings on every one of the abstractions that were so well ranged in ornate marble niches in the minds of our fathers.”
—John Dos Passos (18961970)