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Indian names refer to mythology, Sanskrit, ancient Kings, Gods and Goddesses. Down south it is a tradition to give the new born the name of their grandmother or grandfather.
Another tendency in the south is to keep the surname as their house name. Perumangode Venkitachalam Narayanan or P.V. Narayanan is an example wherein Perumangode is the district of the person born.
Surnames in India often relate to the profession or denote the caste.
Talpade in Maharashtra refers to the Pathare Prabhu clan whereas Shetty are businessmen from Mangalore.
Patil or Patel is the head of the village.
Achari refers to the carpenters in Kerala.
With cross cultural marriages happening, the origin of the surname is retained by the child but does not wholly contribute to the caste or part of India.
During the sixtees and seventees it was a trend to name the child as per the leading star in filmdom. If we do a check we find the names then refer to Hema, Rajesh, Shashi, Sanjeev, Reena, Sharmila and also Dilip. It was also typical to name the children ending with ‘esh’ as in Dinesh, Ramesh, Paresh, Mahesh and Taarkesh. It was easy in those days, to understand just by the first name whether a person was a Punjabi or a Bengali.
The trend these days is to search for meaningful names not particularly to Gods and Goddesses but also virtues.
Nishika means honest,
Nitika means moral,
Anuraaj means enlightened and Amrita means nectar.
Sanskrit names are also common like Sahana for Goddess Lakshmi, Prabhat for morning, Sandhya refers to evening. Padmavati and Avantika refer to legendary queens.
Based on mythology there are variants of Lord Ganesh as Herambh, Ekdant and Harsh. Goddess of wealth, Lakshmi has a variant of atleast 108 different names. Vachi, Saharika, Shriya, Shree, Sridevi, Prakruti, Vimla, Pushti, Saumya, Shuba, Varalakshmi, Bhaskrai and Yashaswini are some of the examples of the name of Goddess Lakshmi.
Indians settled overseas adopt unique names. As the culture insists to keep a second name, Nishant Sean Gaekwad or Sharvari Tina Menon is quite common. It is interesting to note that people are looking for unique names like Shlok, Pulkit, Pranay, Suhani, Shwas and Damayanti. Many names also indicate colour like Shweta for white, Lal for red and Nila for blue. Padma means the lotus flower, Juhi for jasmine and Petula is a modern name meaning petals.
Adding an extra a in Aakash, or an i in Shaiilesh is also suggested by numerologists to bring good luck.
It is also a tradition in India to name the child as per the Raashi which indicates the alphabet for naming the child.
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