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ArchivesNaming in Sri Lanka
South Africa and Sri Lanka are playing a cricket Test match at the moment; one of the Sri Lankan team is a brilliant spin bowler, still playing at top level at the age of 40. Of more interest perhaps is that his first given name and his surname are the same; he goes by his middle name. The full string is: Herath Mudiyanselage Rangana Keerthi Bandara Herath.
Does anyone know whether this is at all usual in Sri Lanka? Many of their cricketers have three or four given names, but I've never seen anything like this before. Perhaps some at least Sri Lankan people traditionally put their surname first and then their given names; then duplicating the surname might be an attempt to make life easier for people who expect the surname to come last? Googling was not very successful: it seems that the suffix -ge (as in Mr Herath's second name) indicates place of origin, "like German Von", which is more interesting than helpful.
And, even if you don't have any information, I hope you enjoy the problem!
Does anyone know whether this is at all usual in Sri Lanka? Many of their cricketers have three or four given names, but I've never seen anything like this before. Perhaps some at least Sri Lankan people traditionally put their surname first and then their given names; then duplicating the surname might be an attempt to make life easier for people who expect the surname to come last? Googling was not very successful: it seems that the suffix -ge (as in Mr Herath's second name) indicates place of origin, "like German Von", which is more interesting than helpful.
And, even if you don't have any information, I hope you enjoy the problem!
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Not a complete answer, but Tamil tradition, either in India, nor in Sri Lanka, uses last names. The various pieces are usually a dynastic name, Father's name, Village name, , title/subcaste marker (which sometimes used to mark occupation as well), etc. in addition to the personal name which can be multiple words and which usually comes last. I don't know enough Tamil to parse this example for you.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_conventions_of_ancient_Tamil_country, and especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_family_names#Tamil_names (which takes a rather extreme stance of not expanding initials, this aspect of the page is ahistorical. Traditionally, especially written in Tamil, there were no initials.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_conventions_of_ancient_Tamil_country, and especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_family_names#Tamil_names (which takes a rather extreme stance of not expanding initials, this aspect of the page is ahistorical. Traditionally, especially written in Tamil, there were no initials.
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Thank you for that, and for the very useful references. It's interesting to know that the tradition extends to (or from?) south India as well, though it's clearly impossible to generalise about a region so diverse.
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