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Indian Epigraphy c16.s7: 7. Personal and Family Names

Indian Epigraphy c16.s7

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7. Personal and Family Names

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The names of persons and families in different parts of India exhibit a great diversity so much so that many of them can be easily located in particular areas of the country. Thus personal names like Subrahmaṇya and Mahāliṅga and family names like Ayyar and Aiyangar are only found in the South,² while names like Rāsavihārī (pronounced *Rāsbihāri*) Harekr̥ṣṇa, etc., and cognomens like Mukhopādhyāya, Vasu, etc., are only expected in the East. Similarly, names with the suffixes *appa* and *amma* (*ambal* in Tamil) for males and females respectively can only be expected in particular areas of the South. In the West, family names are often formed by suffixing the word *kar* to the name of the locality from which the family in question originally hailed (e.g. Bijāpurkar, ‘one whose family hails from Bijāpur’), while in the South the name of the locality itself is usually the family name which is placed before personal names. The name of the father is often added to one’s name in these parts. But while, in Western names like Devadatta Rāmakr̥ṣṇa Bhāṇḍārkar, the first is the personal name, the second is the father’s name and the last contains the name of a locality, in Southern names like Sarvepalli Rāmasvāmi Veṅkaṭarāmaṇ, the order is—first the family name which is the name of a locality, then the father’s name and finally the personal name. Even the same name is pronounced and written differently in different parts; e.g. personal names—Gaṇapati=Gaṇpat, Kaṇabadi; Kṛṣṇa=Kiṣen, Kriṣen, Kruṣṇa and Kiruṣṇaṇ¹; family names (professional)—Śreṣṭhin=Seṭh and Ceṭṭi, etc. Some such regional peculiarities are also noticed in inscriptions even of early times. Thus early inscriptions of South India, especially of the Telugu and Kannaḍa-speaking areas, often mention male and female names with the suffix aṇṇaka or aṇṇaka and aṇṇikā or aṇṇikā respectively. This peculiarity is not noticed in other parts of the country. Names like Saḍaiya-Māraṇ, i.e. ‘Māraṇ, son of Saḍaiyaṇ’, are also often found in South Indian records and not elsewhere.

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² The South offers us some lengthy presonal and geographical names, e.g., *Viṣṇurudraśivānandaśātakarni*, *Veṅkaṭanarasimharājuvaripeṭa*, etc. Note also—Mr. Rāmasvāmi’s son Mr. Veṅkaṭarāman. For some personal and family names, see above, pp. 341-42, 376.

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¹ The Sanskrit name Kṛṣṇa, from which the Bengali name Kānāi, etc., are derived, was modified in the South as Kannara, Kandara, Kandhara, Kannāra, Kandāra and Kandhāra, sometimes re-Sanskritised as Karṇa.

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Nāmakaraṇa or naming the child is a rite of considerable importance and we have copper-plate grants recording gifts made by kings on the occasion of the naming ceremony of the princes.² The Vedic literature often refers to two, three or four names of a person. Some authorities think that the four names were : (1) one derived from the nakṣatra on which the person was born,³ (2) a secret name (after a nakṣatra according to some Gṛhyasūtras), (3) a popular name, and (4) one like Somayājin due to one’s performance of a Somayāga. The three names are often taken to be (1) the ordinary name, (2) a name derived from the father and (3) one derived from the gotra or from the name of a remote ancestor; e.g., (1) Trasadasyu (ordinary name), Paurukutsya (son of Purukutsa) and Gairikṣita (descendant of Girikṣit); (2) Indrota (ordinary name), Daivāpa (son of Devāpi) and Śaunaka (belonging to the Śaunaka gotra). In the Vedic literature, a person is also often mentioned after a locality (e.g., Kaśu Caidya, ‘Kaśu of the Cedi country’; Bhīma Vaidarbha, ‘Bhīma of the Vidarbha country’), while sometimes a metronymic was added to the personal name (e.g. Prahlāda Kāyādhava, ‘Prahlāda, son of Kayādhū’; Mahidāsa Aitareya, ‘Mahidāsa, son of Itarā’). The Gṛhyasūtras have a variety of rules regarding the formation of personal names though they are often conflicting, and we have names which do not conform to the rules. Some Sūtras prescribe names having two parts, e.g., Deva-datta, while others suggest names derived from a sage, a deity (the family deity according to some) or an ancestor, though giving the name of a deity itself is forbidden by others. Some authorities prescribe the naming of a boy after any of the ancestors excepting the father. It is interesting in this connection to note that there are innumerable epigraphical instances of the grandfather and grandson having the same name (e.g. the Gupta emperor Candragupta I and his grandson Candragupta II),¹ while some cases of the father and son having the same name are known from South India (e.g. Later Cālukya Someśvara I Āhavamalla and his son and successor Someśvara II Bhuvanaikamalla). According to some authorities, girls should not be named after nakṣatras, trees and rivers.

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² Bhandarkar’s List, No. 369.

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³ Such names are rare in the Vedic literature probably because they were the secret names. They became quite common in later times.

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¹ Girls were likewise named after the grandmother (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXI, p. 102).

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All the types of names referred to above, both prescribed and forbidden, are found in inscriptions belonging to different parts of India and different ages of history. People were often named after epic and Puranic personages as well as after persons famous in literature. The meaning of a large number of personal names (as also geographical names) is unintelligible apparently because they were often influenced by the local dialects.

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A tendency to distinguish the names of persons belonging to the different Varṇas gradually developed. The Manusmṛti (II. 31-32), for instance, suggests that an upapada suggestive of śarman (happiness), rakṣā (protection), puṣṭi (prosperity) and presya (service) should be added to the names of Brāhmaṇas, Kṣatriyas, Vaiśyas and Śūdras respectively. This soon developed into the prescription of later authorities to the effect that the words *śarman* or *deva*, *varman* or *trātṛ*, *bhūti* or *datta*, and *dāsa* should be suffixed to personal names of the four *Varṇas* respectively.¹ Epigraphical evidence shows, however, that this custom was not popular long before the Gupta age, although it may be noticed in some cases in earlier records. The issuers of many coins who, flourished in several localities in North India shortly before and after the beginning of the Christian era, had names ending in *mitra*. Among ruling families, the name-ending *varman* is for the first time found popular in the Pallava dynasty of Kāñcī, which seems to have become powerful about the close of the third century A.D., although the Pallavas appear to have originally been Brāhmaṇas of the Bhāradvāja *gotra*.² The successors of Mayū-raśarman, the Brāhmaṇa founder of the Kadamba dynasty of Banavāsi, assumed names ending in *varman*.³ In the Mattepad plates of the 5th century A.D., the names of a number of Brāhmaṇa donees are mentioned with the suffix *ajja* (Sanskrit *ārya*; cf. the family name Ayyar and personal names like Rāmayya in particular areas of the South).⁴

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¹ Kane, op. cit., pp. 250-51. See, however, Bodhiśarman of the mercantile community mentioned in a Nagarjunikonda inscription (*Select Inscriptions*, p. 225, text line 2).

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² Cf. *Suc. Sāt. L. Dec.*, pp. 390-91.

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³ Ibid., p. 92-93.

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⁴ Ibid., p. 62.

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The custom, referred to above, is intimately related to the development of family names out of name-endings. We have referred above to the coins of many North Indian kings having names ending in *mitra*. Most of the rulers of the Śuṅga dynasty, founded by Puṣyamitra about 185 B.C., had names ending in *mitra*. A large number of current family names in Bengal (e.g. Ghoṣa, Vasu, Mitra, Pāla, Datta, etc.) were no doubt derived in the same way. But the process was not complete in East India even in the early medieval period. The successors of Candragupta I (c. 319-40 A.D.), who was the son of Ghaṭotkaca and grandson of Gupta, all assumed names ending in *gupta* and thus led to the development of the name of the Gupta dynasty. Similarly, the successors of Gopāla I (c. 750-70 A.D.), who was the son of Vapyata and the grandson of Dayitaviṣṇu, all assumed names ending in pāla and thus gave rise to the name of the Pāla dynasty. But the popularity of framing family names even among ordinary people of Eastern India is attested by inscriptions like the Dubi and Nidhanpur copper-plate grants of king Bhāskaravarman (c. 600-50 A.D.), in which the Brāhmaṇa donees, belonging to particular gotras and śākhās and no doubt also to the same families, are found to have generally names ending in the same word such as ghoṣa, soma, pālita, deva, kuṇḍa, nāga, bhūti, sena, mitra, etc.¹ It may be noted that most of these Brahmanical names do not conform to the prescription of certain authorities regarding the name-endings, to which reference has already been made above. Another interesting fact is that no Brāhmaṇa family of the Bengal-Assam region is now known as Ghoṣa, Soma, etc., which are nowadays popular non-Brāhmanical family names. This apparently shows that a number of Brāhmaṇa families have been merged into the non-Brāhmaṇa communities in the area in question. Another fact to which attention may be drawn in this connection is that there are cases in which the uniformity of the name-ending is disturbed by a few names. Thus the names of ten out of the eleven kings of the so-called Later Gupta dynasty of East Malwa and Magadha end in the word gupta with the exception only of the name of Ādityasena.

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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX, pp. 290-91; Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, pp. 33 ff.

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Inscriptions of the early centuries, especially of South India, often mention persons, of both royal and ordinary ranks, with metronymics like Gautamīputra, ‘one born of a lady belonging to the Gautama gotra’. There is no doubt that the gotra mentioned in such cases is that of the father of a woman and not that of her husband. This shows that some of the popular forms of marriage in ancient India did not involve the gotr-āntara (i.e. the change of the wife’s paternal gotra to that of her husband) at the time of her marriage.²

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² Cf. Proc. IHC, Annamalainagar, 1945, pp. 48 ff.; cf. above, pp. 335-36.

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Family names derived from official or professional designations (e.g. Śreṣṭhin, Senāpati, etc.) are met with especially in medieval records. The original habitat of the family of the Brāhmaṇa donee is often indicated in the copper-plate grants. The South Indian type of family names which are generally those of the villages to which the families belong or originally belonged, is noticed in medieval inscriptions. Some medieval records of Bengal (e.g. the Mehar plate of Dāmodara¹) mention the Brāhmaṇa donees often with reference to their original home, e.g. Kesarakonī ‘one having the original home of one’s family at Kesarakonā’. Such appellations are called gāñi (from Sanskrit grāmīṇa). In Mithilā, the localities known as mūla-grāma are mentioned, since the medieval age, along with personal names, as in Sodarapura-sam-śrī-Rāmadevaśarmā, in which sam probably stands for sambhūta, ‘sprung’.

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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVII, pp. 182 ff.

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