Aro called me today to discuss what was the full name of Ram!My instant reaction was Ram Prasad (with my love for Golmal, I could not have come up with something better)

Actually he had called me to tell me that Ram was a South Indian!

He said, D. Ram (and that he was a South Indian) D for Dashrath, and then improvised and said D.A.Ram for Dashrath Ayodhya Ram (and we could go on from there)

and then we got into a more serious discussion about when did we Indians started using sir-names or like a lot of people call them, last names!

From how I see it, Indians probably had last names for a very long time, however they were not being used very often because no artifacts being created for the names… no forms were being filled, no admissions happened with paper trails, or salaries being distributed with signed forms… and a lot of people had salutations being used instead of last names!

I could immediately think of second names of any characters that I know from the past except maybe Tulsi – Das? Kabir also had a second name, but I cannot remember it right now, and he was mostly referred to as Sant Kabir!

Yudhisthir, Ram, Lakshman, Ravan, Krishn, Bhardwaj, Dronacharya, Parashuram, Akbar, Birbal, Babar, and so on are a few names out of the many that I remember and none have a popular second name reference that I know of… they have salutations though!

I now recall some names from history, like Sher Shah Suri, Bahadur Shad Zafar, Jalal ud-din Mohammad Akbar. Akbar was more popular by his Last name, so to speak, and was the son of Mohammad Humayun (Complete Title : “Al-Sultan al-‘Azam wal Khaqan al-Mukarram, Jam-i-Sultanat-i-haqiqi wa Majazi, Sayyid al-Salatin, Abu’l Muzaffar Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun Padshah Ghazi“). Humayun’s father Babar, had a rather easy complete name, Zahir ud-din Muhammad Jalal ud-din Babur. So it seems to me that Mughals were also using some sort of salutation and the reference to Mohammad in their names!

As far as Hindu kings and emperors go, I remember some names like Chandragupta Maurya, however there are multiple views on his last name Maurya and his origin, however he is referred to mostly as Chandragupta only. Another name is Hemu Chandra Vikramaditya!!!

I spent a little more time reading about these names and people and seems like while the second names, or sir names, or Family names ( either before or after the name) have been there for centuries, they have not been very popular in the locals, or maybe they were! We would not know someone who is not that popular from history anyway!

With the coming of English to India, I think paper trails were introduced, documentation and collection of artifacts and forms started which made the use of second/sir names a much popular and now indispensable norm!

Thoughts?

For a long time my take on history was what the first few lines of this song are 🙂 with time, I have realized that I do care more than what I used to !!!