(This is a cultural ignorance issue on my part…and this is where I come when I’m ignorant)
Whether true or not, there appear to be names that are more common in a culture than others, Wong in China, Smith or Miller or whatnot in Anglo-Saxon parts of the world.
Perhaps it’s sample bias, but of the East Indians I’ve encountered in IT, one of the most interesting aspects is the varied nature of the names. Perhaps it’s a linguistic difference, but I don’t recognize common patterns to the names I’ve come across.
Is there an Indian equivalent to Smith, Jones, Wong, Garcia, Anderson, etc?
Most Hindu and Indian Muslim surnames are caste names (quite literally, the caste they were born in to, even if they do not practice that profession any more), and some others are, in fact, noble titles (e.g. the Tagores and Thakurs, which means “land-owner”) which are now treated as surnames. Among Sikhs, the “surname” Singh is actually part of a boy’s given name (the boy has been dedicated to defending the faith, at sword point, if necessary), with Kaur being the female equivalent.
I have a theory that the reason that names like “Smith” and “Miller” are so common in English is that the people who got those names, i.e., worked as a blacksmith or a miller, tended to be richer and better fed than the average “Forester” or “Farmer” and therefore had more of their children survive, thus breeding more Smiths and Millers. Is there a specific craftsman caste in India? I know that “Patel” means innkeeper, so I can understand why the name has spread out (how many inns does a town need?).
Unlike England, which has more or less had a single language since the time when Smith et al. stopped being descriptors and started being names, India has always had lots and lots of languages. So, there are so many names which predominate in specific areas that it’s kind of pointless to list them.
The names most common among expatriate Indians (i.e., the ones you might have met) differ quite widely from those most common among the Indian population generally. The Indian populations of the UK and US are overwhelmingly from the western bit, Gujarat and Maharashtra, and from higher castes.
So westerners are familiar with Gujarati names like Patel, which derives from the Gujarati word patidar, “landowner”, which over time became a caste unto itself. Other common ones are Mehta (from Sanskrit mahita, “great”), and Desai (from Sanskrit desa, land). Those are basically caste names, as StJoan mentioned.
Marathi names commonly end in “-kar” (mine does), from a Sanskrit term of varying meanings, which denotes a place of residence (“from the village or area of _____ (insert first part of name).”
The other issue, from what I’ve read, is that there is no single “India” any more than there is a common “Europe”. The subcontinent has multiple ethnic groups, multiple languages, multiple historical threads and so multiple name sources and naming conventions.
(One fellow I worked with came from the area near the Pakistani border - I think -and changed his name when he became a Canadian citizen, IIRC adding his father’s name as his surname instead of his village name. Generally, he only had one name, but used his father’s or village’s name to distinguish himself. From now on, his kids will use his father’s name, thus starting a new family name.)
In my experience, it seems to be very regional. I do a lot of work with the Gujarati community, and to me it seems like the diversity of surnames is lower there. I usually name my contracts by bride’s last name and grooms last name, and in my non-Indian clientele, I have yet to require another identifier. With my Indian clients, I have to add first names quite often, as there are a lot of Shah-Shah marriage, or Patel-Patel, or Parikh-Shah, etc. The surnames I find most often are: Shah, Patel, Parikh, and Mehta. (And it’s not just because I’m dealing within the same families–many of these come from various referral bases.)
In Punjab and Gujarat, respectively, that is true. Anywhere else in India, that’s not really the case. In the south of India, particularly (where, incidentally, the first name / surname structure only really exists in affluent urban populations), you’re not going to find a preponderance of Patels or Singhs. India is just too large and varied a country to generalise like this.
I’m not sure where you get the innkeeper reference from, but the Patels are traditionally a community of landowners, and you can definitely have more landowners per town than innkeepers. Patels these days tend to be more stereotypically self-employed businessmen rather than landowners.
India is not a single ethno-cultural group. There are about 20 major ethnic groups and dozens and dozens of small ones. Each one has its own language and and its own tradition of naming.
Besides the ethnic divisions, there are two major and multiple minor religious groups, and religion also plays a role in naming traditions. Muslims often use Arabic names. Christians often use Portuguese, French, or English family names. Sikhs have Singh/Kaur either as a given name or as a family name. Jains are all named “Jain.” Etc.
Many of these subgroups traditionally do not use family names and many of them have only recently adopted the practice. Thus, Parsees might have names like “Shipchandler” and “Pilot” and “Sodawaterbottleopenerwalla” (not a joke). And, as noted above, in many cases groups have simply adopted their caste names as family names. So, if you are among Gujarati Hindus, you’ll meet a lot of Patels, Mehtas, Desais, Shahs, etc., but these names are not India-wide names.
Many ethno-cultural groups still don’t use family names.
A large number of roadside motels in the United States are owned and operated by people named Patel. But this is an American phenomenon, not related to the literal origin of the name “Patel.”
Holy crap. So, if I understand the suffix “walla” correctly (or at least as I tweaked it in my little time in India), does this mean that the surname is for someone whose job (ETA: or, rather, coming from an ancestor whose job) would have been to open soda water bottles? If so, the next question is, is this a specific job or some kind of colorful name for a bartender or waiter or something?
I surmise that it’s someone whose job is literally to open soda water bottles.
Traditionally, the bulk commerce in India does not take place in large, organized chains. You are walking down the street, and you feel the need for a bottle of soda. There’s a guy there who does nothing but sell bottles of soda. You pay for a bottle, and there’s another guy there whose job is to open it for you. You are given a paper straw, which closes up and sticks with the first suck. You drink your soda standing right there in the street. When you are finished you hand back the bottle, which will be sent for washing and reuse.
Traditionally, India didn’t have restaurants, bars, etc., for the masses. They were only for the very rich. So if you wanted some kind of refreshment, you’d just walk out of your house, and within a block or two you could usually find someone selling it.
Things have changed a lot over the past 60 years in India and you see all kinds of things now, even modern western-style retail and food establishments, but the old has not disappeared with the coming of the new, so you get a mixture of all kinds of things. (I think, though, that they no longer use those crappy paper straws.)
“Walla” in various S Asian languages means “the guy/the guy with” (female form* walli*). So Sodabottleopenerwallah literally means “The guy with the soda bpttle opener”.
It Southern and Eastern parts of the sub continment various “wallahs” have become surnames. Like “Farmer” Or “Carpenter”.
In the rest of the sub continent “wallah” is used as a description, not as a name.
Yup, exactly. I work with a Limbuvala, literally “lemon-man”, or seller of lemons. Presumably at some point someone in his family did actually sell lemons. I also know several Daruwallas, (alcohol man), and there’s at least one Ginwala (Frene Ginwala - Wikipedia) and even an Adenwalla, who was responsible for founding the port of Aden: Cowasjee Dinshaw Adenwalla - Wikipedia
Regarding Mr. Sodawaterbottleopenerwala, I’m unsure whether this Facebook profile is a fake or not. Mickey Sodawaterbottleopenerwala
Just as an example of how specific jobs can be in India, in the form of personal anecdotes:
I went to buy some handkerchiefs. Stopped in at the men’s apparel shop (“Men’s Suitings”). I am greeted at the door by a greeter, who asks me what I’m after. I say “handkerchiefs.” The greeter directs a peon to take me up to the handkerchiefs section, where there is a handkerchief salesman standing in front of a dizzying array of handkerchiefs. He asks me my preferences, and proceeds to pull out a series of examples, displaying quality, materials, colors, patterns, etc. When I make my choice, the handkerchief salesman calls over the peon and entrusts him with my purchase. He writes out a chit detailing my purchase and hands it to me. I am sent to the cashier. The handkerchiefs are sent to the wrapper. I take the chit to the cashier, who accepts my payment and hands me a receipt. I take the receipt to the wrapper who hands my wrapped purchase to the greeter/doorman. As I exit, the greeter/doorman hands me my package.
There was a similar system at McDonald’s. Although I carried my own tray up to the seating area, there was someone up there to help me find a seat and to bring me napkins and ketchup packets.
Yeah, when I was there I heard the term in “auto-wallah” (auto rickshaw drivers) and “dabbawala” (guy who delivers lunchboxes), and probably in some other general contexts. I didn’t realize the jobs were so compartmentalized that there’d be a separate soda bottle seller and soda bottle opener. Very interesting.
I disagree. The point of surnames is to distinguish between people with the same first name. So if you have 10 Johns in your village, and someone says, “Go get John!” you say, “Which one? John the smith, John the baker, John the miller, John with red hair, John who visited London once, John who lives by the pasture, John who lives by the lake, John the tailor, John who lives by the hill, or John the son of Will?”
If they said “No, I mean John the Farmer”, you wouldn’t know which John because most of them are farmers. You need to distinguish all Johns who are farmers by giving them other names–Green, Waters, London, Wilson, and so on. A village has one smith and one miller, so you can call John the smith “John Smith” and everyone knows which John you mean.
So the most common occupation–Farmer–turns out to be an uncommon surname because it is too common to use as a differentiator.
From Scots folklore (I found this in a magazine published in 1842 and it’s possibly older than that, so it’s definitely no longer protected under copyright law):
