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:
“—the dark ajar, the rocks breaking with light,
and undisturbed, unbreathing flame,
colorless, sparkless, freely fed on straw,
and, lulled within, a family with pets,
—and looked and looked our infant sight away.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)