NAMES IN KERALA AND OTHER PARTS OF INDIA.

The house names are added to the  names of almost every Malayalees. This must be a unique system in the whole world when we consider the formation of this particular names. While it is indicating the clan, cast, community, lineage or tradition in other parts of India, in Kerala these names are derived from geography, flora and fauna, places of worship etc. Most of the house names in this state might have derived from the name of trees, land shapes (high, low, flat etc) natural water ways like river, stream, canal, pond etc. Then comes small, big and old house. Different colours in Malayalam are also nused in house names. The words big and small in local languages also widely used. Adjacence to temple, church etc also used to indicate house names. Large rock fall, paddy field. flower garden and large agricultural land are also very much used as house names. Gold, silver, copper, iron etc are also used as house names in Kerala. Christian and some Hindu names are rarely used for house names.

We may also find that huts (കുടിൽ) to palace (കൊട്ടാരം, മാളിക, മന്ദിരം) etc are also widely used to indicate house name. Surprisingly, those with palace names need not be rich and well placed but can be extremely poor too. Similarly among those with hut names can be mega rich and very well placed occupants. Kerala is the lone state in India using these types of individual names, the above also used as part of their names. In most other states of India cast and subcast is added to the names.

In UP, MP, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal etc cast is added to the individual names . Sharma, Shukla, Pandey, Tiwari, Dubey, Singh, Thakur, Parmar, Jadeja, Chauhan, Agarwal, Rastogi, Oswal, Gupta, Goyal, Mallah, Katiyar, Nai,  Yadav, Kushwaha etc  are popular in UP, MP, Bihar etc. In Odisha Patnaik, Mishra, Mahapatra, Naik, Rai etc are commonly found. In  Bengal the prominent names include Chatterjee, Mukherjee, Banerjee, Bose , Sen etc. In Maharashtra surnames are deprived from cast as well as occupation.  Geographic/origin based category with

 " ...kar" suffix is common there. Tendulkar. Gavaskar, Manjrekar, Agarkar, Solkar etc fall in this category. Profession is another aspect provide the name. Patil (Village head), Deshmukh (District administrator),  Deshpande (District accountant), Kulkarni (Village record keeper) are some examples. Joshi (Astrologer/Priest), Bhose/Bose) Basu indicate Kayastha caste which is historically associated with scribes, administrators, often working as civil servants, managers ets.

In short, practically these types of names, irrespective of caste and religion are sheer imaginative concepts like Surya Dev (Sun god) and Arush (first ray of the Sun).

K V George