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Help[Facts] Indian MNs
Is it common for people in India to have middle names? Also are names written in "Last name, First name" form or "First name, Last name" form?
Juli
Juli
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The rule that surname comes first in mainland Asia and last in Asian islands only really applies to China and Japan, to my knowledge (which is pretty imperfect, unfortunately). Chinese surnames come first - like Chairman Mao. But Japanese names are in the order we find usual in the West.
The parts of India where Indo-European languages are spoken will be likely to use the given-name-first, surname-last convention. Other parts of India ... don't seem to feel the need of a rule.
Someone whose name I forget (long and complicated, it was) got selected for the Indian cricket team about ten years ago; he came from a village in southern India where surnames just weren't used at all. But as an international sportsman he needed one! If memory serves, he just used the name of his home village.
The parts of India where Indo-European languages are spoken will be likely to use the given-name-first, surname-last convention. Other parts of India ... don't seem to feel the need of a rule.
Someone whose name I forget (long and complicated, it was) got selected for the Indian cricket team about ten years ago; he came from a village in southern India where surnames just weren't used at all. But as an international sportsman he needed one! If memory serves, he just used the name of his home village.
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Actually the correlation is not quite with the language spoken. The situation is only slightly more complex. Thus, for example, a typical Telugu brahmin often follows the given-name first family-name last convention, though the language is not classified as Indo-European.
When cultural traits change rapidly in a certain region, we tend to define a line, called a `cline', separating the two regions. In India, lot of clines start near Maharashtra in the west run roughly eastward, but then after separating Madhya Pradesh (north) from Andhra Pradesh (South), the different clines (i.e. clines corresponding to the different characteristics) part ways, some leaving Bengal and Orissa with the South, and some leaving them in the North.
The North, only defined in this fuzzy fashion, speaks Indo European, uses given name first, uses animal fat for cooking, eats wheat and other grains instead of rice, and starting clothing their women more often earlier. In the South, especially in the transition region between North and South, the same traits can be found amongst the upper caste.
So, the link is, possibly, not entirely linguistic, but rather remnants of a long cultural divide. And looking at my genealogy I can see memory of the family name changing within the last 10-12 generations (I am from Bengal), which cannot be much more than about 300 years back I guess.
And all this is for the Hindu population: there is another about 15% of the population (mainly Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Parsee, Jain, and Buddhist) with their own rules.
When cultural traits change rapidly in a certain region, we tend to define a line, called a `cline', separating the two regions. In India, lot of clines start near Maharashtra in the west run roughly eastward, but then after separating Madhya Pradesh (north) from Andhra Pradesh (South), the different clines (i.e. clines corresponding to the different characteristics) part ways, some leaving Bengal and Orissa with the South, and some leaving them in the North.
The North, only defined in this fuzzy fashion, speaks Indo European, uses given name first, uses animal fat for cooking, eats wheat and other grains instead of rice, and starting clothing their women more often earlier. In the South, especially in the transition region between North and South, the same traits can be found amongst the upper caste.
So, the link is, possibly, not entirely linguistic, but rather remnants of a long cultural divide. And looking at my genealogy I can see memory of the family name changing within the last 10-12 generations (I am from Bengal), which cannot be much more than about 300 years back I guess.
And all this is for the Hindu population: there is another about 15% of the population (mainly Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Parsee, Jain, and Buddhist) with their own rules.
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To throw Tamil Nadu in there:
Most Tamilians are given a name, like the western tradition, and usually use their father's name as a last name. A wife takes on her husband's name as her last name. However, it is becoming more popualr just to keep a single last name for all the family, instead of the father's name buisness.
Also, it was originally that a child was named after the grandparents (because it was the grandparent's priviledge to name them, and they would just give their own name). Nowadays, children get their own name, and use their grandparent's name as a "religious" name only.
Most Tamilians are given a name, like the western tradition, and usually use their father's name as a last name. A wife takes on her husband's name as her last name. However, it is becoming more popualr just to keep a single last name for all the family, instead of the father's name buisness.
Also, it was originally that a child was named after the grandparents (because it was the grandparent's priviledge to name them, and they would just give their own name). Nowadays, children get their own name, and use their grandparent's name as a "religious" name only.
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India is culturally diverse, more diverse than Europe by some measures. Just as it is difficult to make statements about `European' practices which hold true for Basques, Czechs, English, Finnish, French, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, and Norwegians, just to take a small subset, it is equally difficult to make statements about Indians.
The use of last name itself, is not very old in some regions, especially for women. Today, most people in North India do go by a first name followed by a last name, though sometimes the first name consists of a conjoined set of words (e.g. mani gopal), and sometimes the same holds for the last name (e.g. sen gupta). There are no fixed conventions whether these are written as separate words or joined when writing in the Roman script (e.g. manigopal), and some people will write it as one word, but still use two initials when the full names are not desired!
The last name can be followed by or replaced by an honorific or occupational title, and sometimes becomes a last name. Since the last name gives away the `caste' to the cognoscenti, some people drop it altogether, and go only by the first names. The honorific if placed before the first name is usually recognized as such. In some regions, a word signifying status like `unmarried woman', or `belonging to the Sikh religion', is interposed between the first name and the last name, and sometimes the last name is entirely omitted in this context. In some other regions, a woman is often addressed by her first name followed by a word meaning `goddess'.
There are large swaths of South India where there is no last name but the first name is preceded by the father's name, and, I know of at least one woman who replaced that by her mother's name instead. The father's name in this context is usually denoted by just the initial. I know of one person who insisted on writing this initial after his first name, so I guess it couldn't have been called an initial.
Other markers like village or tribe name are often prepended, appended or infixed, especially in the Western regions.
The use of last name itself, is not very old in some regions, especially for women. Today, most people in North India do go by a first name followed by a last name, though sometimes the first name consists of a conjoined set of words (e.g. mani gopal), and sometimes the same holds for the last name (e.g. sen gupta). There are no fixed conventions whether these are written as separate words or joined when writing in the Roman script (e.g. manigopal), and some people will write it as one word, but still use two initials when the full names are not desired!
The last name can be followed by or replaced by an honorific or occupational title, and sometimes becomes a last name. Since the last name gives away the `caste' to the cognoscenti, some people drop it altogether, and go only by the first names. The honorific if placed before the first name is usually recognized as such. In some regions, a word signifying status like `unmarried woman', or `belonging to the Sikh religion', is interposed between the first name and the last name, and sometimes the last name is entirely omitted in this context. In some other regions, a woman is often addressed by her first name followed by a word meaning `goddess'.
There are large swaths of South India where there is no last name but the first name is preceded by the father's name, and, I know of at least one woman who replaced that by her mother's name instead. The father's name in this context is usually denoted by just the initial. I know of one person who insisted on writing this initial after his first name, so I guess it couldn't have been called an initial.
Other markers like village or tribe name are often prepended, appended or infixed, especially in the Western regions.
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