[Chetan_Rao]

Every time I hear someone mention this far too common complication, I send thanks my parents' way!

My surname is actually not one at all. It is actually the tail end of my father's given name. His own expanded name has the <ancentral place> <father's name> <given name> format and struggles to fit onto forms that won't take initials.

Long story (and name) short, I ended up with a total 9 letters in given + last name, easy to spell and pronounce, sorted. Well, except some overzealous South Indian functionary who insists on tacking on an 'h' after the 't', until I correct them. Can't have it all, I guess!

[DicKy]

Thought this problem was done away with! Guess I am in a bubble. Assumed that everyone was using their father's name as surname nowadays.

Thanks to getting a passport when I was a few months old and staying in Saudi Arabia, which mostly followed the American naming system for non locals, my surname has been my father's name. Ofcourse, there has been many instances where forms asked for First name, middle name and last name/ surname, but learnt to conveniently leave the middle name blank. Second time I faced the surname issue was when I returned back to India. Most kids of my generation have both the father's and mother's name as initials. Like, Ajith.R.J. Or Ajith.R.Jayan. So when teachers would ask for name details, I would say my full name and they would ask again for my initials. So had to clarify that it is my surname and they can either use the initial or expand it to surname. But other than the initial confusion, I never had any problems with the surnames or initials for a couple of decades in any official work in India or abroad, or for online forms.

Not sure how it was before, but in my great grand fathers' and grand fathers' time, they had their name + honirific title name. Specifically saying honirific title as in titles given by the king, which people in their respective communities started to use. Caste based surnames are a recent (100 years) style I believe. My father's generation, 1950s onwards. They stopped using any titles or caste name. It was just Name + Father's name. Of course, there were people who would cling onto their caste identity and use the caste name as surname but by and large using caste name was out of fashion.
By my generation (1980s onwards), many started to use both their father's and mother's name as surname. Though a couple of my cousins used the honirific title in their social media handles, they stopped using after some times and all of my cousins' kids have either their father's or both their parent's name as surname/initial.

Originally Posted by dragracer567

I guess the primary reason is due to the erasure of caste identity - especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu where people increasingly don't want to be associated with their caste.

Sadly, not. Many of my friends started using their caste name as surname on their social media handles starting from the early 2010s, eventhough their official, real world names didn't have any caste links. On questioned, most excuse by saying they are not getting any reservations, at least let them use their caste name in social media for identity sakes. Sad thing is their kids are getting caste surnames. Name + father's initials + caste name. About Tamil Nadu, on surface there is no caste, as except for the southern parts most don't use their castes as surname, but scratch the surface, and it horribly casteist with even huge community based hoardings in the smaller towns.

[gauravdgr8]

Originally Posted by motorworks

There is no immediate travel plan at hand, but I might as well do something about this right now rather than leaving it for too late.

You're not the only one on this single name boat. A very close friend of mine who is a Himachali, wife is a Punjabi hasn't kept surnames for both of his daughters.

Well I think the UAE amended the amendment stating that children with both parents name on the passport need not worry. Check it out. However just to avoid future hassles, it is better to just get an alphabet added.

[sunnysideup_]

I too like many just assumed my father's name as my surname, and assumed it to be the norm. It works perfectly fine as is for me and for many around me. Like many have pointed out, it was done to erase caste markers in one's name. There was once a time when people would have the name of the village they were from as a prefix to their name as well, but that has been done away with as well.

From this one might gather that southern states are developing and are no longer casteist but that really isn't the case. Dig a little further and you'll see it is surface level only. Honour killings are still rampant, and so many other caste related crimes as well.

That's not to say this isn't a welcome move. I for one think it should be the norm throughout India. We have to start somewhere, don't we? I also know of many new age couples who have started using both the mother's and the father's given name hyphenated together as their child's surname, and I think that is rather lovely. Bubbling it into OMR sheets must be a pain though .

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by motorworks

What can i do now? I don’t want to add my name as his surname. In some countries he may get called by his surname, which is nothing but my name!

Unfortunately it's just matter of time before you will have to do something, especially for international documents, it has become de-facto standard to have a last name or surname along with given name.

Like few have already mentioned, different countries have different rules for Visa applications. For US Visa, one is required to put FNU (first name unknown) as fist name and put the actual given name as last name. It's rather awkward.

Like your son's case, i only had a single given name in all my school/college documents. For some reason (which i don't recollect now), i decided to add my father's last name (which is actually the name of his mother's village) as my surname when applying for passport (i was still in college). I think it's probably the officer at the passport desk who insisted that i give something as a surname. This was in early 2000s where application form was to be filled on physical paper. Same name has now carried over to all my documents, and surely saved a lot of hassle. Such overriding adjustments will not be so easy these days because of stricter rules.

Leaving the travel documents aside, most of the institutions (banks, govt offices etc), simply cannot handle input of names with just a single given name! When i started working, the company i joined, opened a salary account for me (Citibank) with a period symbol in my last name (because of missing last name in college document obviously).

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

Is there also a discrepancy in the formats used for male and female children? For e.g, Dinesh Karthik, Viswanathan Anand, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murali Vijay, N Chandrasekharan (Tata Sons Chairman) etc seem to be using the <father name><son name> format, whereas don't recall any <father name><daughter name>.

There are few, like P V Sindhu, or P T Usha, who have initials before given name, but i guess it's less common these days.
My mother's name actually follows this convention: <father's ancestral village> <father's given name> <given name>.

[vedirah]

My name is Haridev V in all my records except the PAN card (for some reason PAN card needs a last name). This caused issues when linking my aadhar to my PAN. Now I'm considering changing my name to Haridev Vaikundamoorthy, which is my given name followed by my father's name. The curious thing is - in my passport, my last name is blank. Not even initials. It just says 'Given Name: Haridev'. When your passport accepts this, what is the reason for other agencies demanding that you should be given a last name compulsorily? Beats me. I can understand when in older times the way to identify a person was by their name, their last name (sometimes caste name, which irks me), and which village they're from. Today it makes no sense to enforce such a policy. Last names should be done away with. I'm Haridev, it doesn't matter who my father is or what my caste is. Just treat me like I am Haridev and nothing else please.

[Hayek]

Interesting thread. Something that many Tamilians and Malayalis in particular face.

My grandfather’s name was S R Nxxx YYYY - S being the village name, R his father’s name, Nxxx his first name, and YYYY our caste name. My father dropped the caste name when he was doing his Pre University in Madras - so he was S N Bxxx. For me, we dropped the village name too - in my school documents, we put it as Rxxx Bxxxx (first name and father’s name with surname blank). Fortunately, when I was applying for a passport we changed that - and made Bxxx my surname.

For my wife and son, we write the name Maharashtrian style - First Name, my first name and Bxxx as the surname. Fully agree that different communities have different traditions - but to take my own family, these traditions change - and it makes immense sense for South Indians who want to be outside India to adopt a Western style First Name - Middle Name - Last Name format.

[anand.shankar82]

Being from TN I can also identify with this issue.

My name on passport is "Anand Shankar" where my name being Anand and Shankar is actually my dad's name.
Similarly my dad's passport reads "Shankar Dharmaraj" with the same logic ... Shankar is his name and Dharmaraj is my grandpa's name

As you can see there seems to be no relation between these 2 people based on a "surname" concept

In fact in school they were so particular about surname that they just added "IYER" to my report cards. So my name went to "A. IYER" from my real name and I had no idea who they were referring to when they called this name out

Currently I live in MH and every time I go to any govt. office, they ask "Adnaav Kai" (what's your surname in Marathi) and I have to explain to them I am from TN and don't have one

Its a funny situation which I guess all TN folks endure for all of their lives

[dragonfire]

In India we don't have surnames. We append our caste/subcaste names and call them surnames.

During the 70s and 80s a lot of social awakening happened in the southern states and even the upper castes started naming their kids without the caste names. Some of them abbreviated them and called them initials.

In Kerala none of my peers at school or college had their caste names appended to their names. But once they had to get their passports, they had to expand their initials and thus they got their caste names back. I got to know the caste of many of my friends in college only when I saw their linkedin profiles.

[G V Krishna]

I take offense with the title. In the Telugu states Surname/Family name is 99% prevalent. It is only in TamilNadu, Kerala & parts of Karnataka that the practice of having a surname/family name has been suppressed/discarded over the last few decades. Hence my request to OP not to generalize entire South India and request the Mods to amend the title.

Now coming to the etymology of names among Telugu people, 99% of times it is of the form <Family Name> <GivenName1><GivenName2><GivenNameN>.

Some People who feel that Caste is important or are 'proud' of their caste, include the caste name in the end.

See some examples in the attached Image.

The multiple given names arise because of multiple 'Favorite' gods and also to cater to pleasing the said Gods. Sometimes elders names might also be taken as one of the given name. It used to be a common practice to have 4-5 given names for a single person. There were typical cases when each parent, each grand parent wanted a God's name which resulted in 4-5 Given names.

Even today this practice prevails and 99% of Telugus have the above naming structure.

When I was staying in TamilNadu, I too got the same doubt as OP and upon inquiring and talking to some senior dudes, came to know that it was in the Dravidian movement that many of the Family Names & Caste names were truncated and the practice of taking the Father's name as surname started.

Another thing that bugs me as a Telugu is that The Central Government doesn't accommodate our naming culture. Like we 'are' <FamilyName><GivenName> and not <GivenName><FamilyName> like else where in the country. Aadhar was brutal towards us and lakhs of people suffered difficulties due to the first name/last name & Family name/ Given Name confusions. But anyway that discussion would be off-topic.

Note: Forgot to mention that the Family name most of the times is the ancestral/origin village name from where the family originated/grew popular.

[The Rationalist]

The surname non sense is a Western invention, where men are called by Surname like Taylor, Butcher all their lives and women by their first name! I refused to be called by my father’s name, I correct those who address me in that way saying in my culture my name is first name. I have my mother’s name as middle name and father’s name as surname. I have named my children likewise. I could have opted for ancestral surname which would make it obviously belonging to a religion.

OP can let his son explain that his name is Dhruv and wants to be addressed so and have your name as his Surname. Don’t fret too much on this.

[kvsneela]

Originally Posted by vedirah

My name is Haridev V in all my records except the PAN card (for some reason PAN card needs a last name). This caused issues when linking my aadhar to my PAN. Now I'm considering changing my name to Haridev Vaikundamoorthy, which is my given name followed by my father's name. The curious thing is - in my passport, my last name is blank. Not even initials. It just says 'Given Name: Haridev'. When your passport accepts this, what is the reason for other agencies demanding that you should be given a last name compulsorily? Beats me. I can understand when in older times the way to identify a person was by their name, their last name (sometimes caste name, which irks me), and which village they're from. Today it makes no sense to enforce such a policy. Last names should be done away with. I'm Haridev, it doesn't matter who my father is or what my caste is. Just treat me like I am Haridev and nothing else please.

Dear Haridev, I also had problems of linking PAN and Aadhar due to mismatch of name formats.I don't have any surname only father's name as initial( as per TN practice). In PAN card , my father's name was added in the print automatically ( though I did not mention any thing as surname) which created problems ( it was in early 2000s).My Aadhar has only my name even without any intials or surname. So PAN Aadhar link was not possible. I had to change PAN as per Aadhar or Aadhar as per PAN. I felt changing PAN might be easy and tried online. Now in PAN application ( i think point no 2) where u are asked to mention the abbreviated name format to be printed in the PAN card( irrespective whatever format filled up in name fields). So I mentioned the name as per Aadhar and the problem is solved. Now both PAN and Aadhar cards have same name( without initials or surname).

[gvivek75]

It's become a classic case of humans becoming subservient to machines. Someone designing an application (systems managing passport, tax ID, core banking etc) went ahead and made those fields mandatory, and the practice just continued.

And now those working on these systems have little choice but to comply with the system imposed rules.

We can debate endlessly on regional or Western practices, but the fact remains that systems are usually designed with a larger demographic in mind. We all have our own 'exceptions' but if it's only about beating the so called system one way or the other, just find the most suitable option that works for you individually. Father's name, Village, Caste etc etc. anything that works for you.

[anjan_c2007]

Quite a peculiar situation, though this has been going on since ages. If I am not mistaken our second President of India's full name Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan comprised his native place's name starting with "S" followed by his name starting with "R". There was no surname. There are millions who are in the same boat.

Why South? In many parts of India, folks do not use their surnames. A known person Prem Babu Gupta's official name is Prem Babu. Similarly, many have a first name, where the middle name is either Kumar or Singh and so on. There is a surname but the concerned person just writes Singh, Ram, Kaur, Kumar or Krishna after his or her first name. Eventually, these become their surnames under induced coercion either by themselves or as created and induced by their forefathers.

Like for instance:-

-Kuldeep Singh Brar writes only Kuldeep Singh.

- Jagdish Ram Verma writes only Jagdish Ram.

- Hardeep Kaur Ahluwalia writes only Hardeep Kaur.

-Anil Kumar Shrivastava writes only Anil Kumar.

- Akhil Krishna Ghosh writes only Akhil Krishna.

These are mysteries and such mysteries shall remain unresolved unless the concerned person/s change their names through affidavits, adding their surnames by digging up past records and publishing the change of name/s in at least one or two prominent newspapers as is mandatory.

[mxx]

Typically when you don't want to add caste, location etc, it is common to keep Father's First Name as Surname. Dont think too much into it. Why do you care so much about what people think about a name? It is their problem not yours.
Keep your first name or your wife's first name and be don't with it.
For my daughter we put both my wife's and my name after her given name.