I never thought about the confusions of First / Last names until I moved to the USA.
Many people over here in the United States are confused how to call me. Most call me Venkitu..and some who know me call me Narayanan. So, when I am in a group of known and unknown people...it is all confusion!
Now, about my name........Following the customary naming conventions..peculiar to where I was born in India, ....Tamil Nadu ( I think most parts of India have a last name concept ) I was named Venkitu Narayanan.
Venkitu is actually my father's first name. Venkitu Narayanan got carried on to my school certificates, passport, Visa and my Social Security card as well.
I am wondering how this custom started. Why is it not common all over India ?
Do we have the same custom anywhere else in the world?
I was talking to an American friend of mine last week about this. His last name is "Wetmore". Just by using his last name, he was able to trace out ( with a little difficulty) his family tree.
With a name confusion like what I have, it won't be easy to build a family tree to trace back my family.
I was talking to an American friend of mine last week about this. His last name is "Wetmore". Just by using his last name, he was able to trace out ( with a little difficulty) his family tree.
With a name confusion like what I have, it won't be easy to build a family tree to trace back my family.
6 comments:
Yeah, I have seen this custom predominantly in TN. In most of the other states, people have a family name as their lastname, which makes it quite convenient in so many ways.
And not all Americans have a family name as their lastname. My first boss had his father's name as his lastname.
Anand, thats news for me. I thought only TN had this cutom.
I used to think about this too. we should all have our Gothram and native town as our last name (that will be awfully big) to trace our family tree.
Especially when someone finds your surname & your wife's surname different, they rise an eyebrow.
my surname is my dad's firstname.
my wife's surname is my firstname.
oh dear.. its a pain explaining these things to ppl and yet get a "what-kind-of-specimen-you-are" look.
Anand,
Intereting..to read about your boss's name. I've not come across such cases here.
Saranyan,
I have a friend PT Thomas. Expands to Pulimootil Thomas Thomas. P..l is the name of his village. Thomas is his dad!
Chakra,
Confusion..!! True.
My wifes name is Natarajan Uma. We decided to retain her maiden name.
Same confusion here too..with something added. She is not Uma Narayanan..!! So people ask her all the time..why?
Ok folks, have a good Monday.!
I think that this culture of ours has been inherited as part of the process of removing the caste name from our names. In the earlier days it used to be Initial.FirstName.CasteName and people generally referred using the caste name - "Iyer", "Chettiar", "Reddy" etc. So when the caste name was removed, and we needed a last name, we started using the Father's name.
But..why did the father's name go in front?
Why Venkitu Narayanan? Why not Narayanan Venkitu.
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