Etymology
Note that "Mukherjee" evolved from the Sanskrit Mukhopadhyay (Bengali: মুখোপাধ্যায় Mukhopaddhae). Mukhopadhyay is from the purer Sanskrit form Mukhyopadhyay (in Sanskrit Mukhya - chief, Upadhyay - teacher, not necessarily a religious teacher). In modern parlance, the two are often used interchangeably, much like other such pairs (Banerjee/Bandhyopadhyay, Chatterjee/Chattyopadhyay), Ganguly/Gangopadhyay), with the latter being used primarily in religious contexts. How these interchangeable pairs arose is unknown. Another theory is that Upadhyay from Kanauj settled at different villages in present day West Bengal and thus earned the prefixes of the villages before their Upadhay surname.
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