by Sachi Sri Kantha

[originally appeared in the Tamil Nation monthly (London), Aug. 1992 under the nom de plume C.P.Goliard] 

‘What’s in a name that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell so sweet.’

 Wrote Shakespeare, for his play Romeo and Juliet. But that play was written more than 400 years ago by the Bard. Now, even the Bard will agree that ‘There’s a lot in a Name’, especially if it happens to be a Tamil name in Britain or anywhere else other than Tamilnadu or Eelam. 

To explain my point, I will transcribe some relevant portions of a thought-provoking piece which appeared in the British Medical Journal of Feb.17, 1990. It was written by Bashir Qureshi, a general practitioner. 

‘The Royal Society of Medicine hosted a two day international conference entitled Cancer Today, at an elegant hotel in London…A hospital consultant, an oncologist and a general practitioner were selected to open the debate by speaking for three minutes; the first two were Englishmen, but the general practitioner was a British Asian (to be precise a Tamil from Sri Lanka)… 

The Chairman of the conference (who) arrived to organize the sequence for the three discussions, wrote down the two English names without any reaction but was stunned when he heard the southern Indian name, and his eyes opened wide. The chairman was clever and he divided the name into syllables so as to enable him to pronounce it  correctly. It sounded like Jaya-sri-vasta-wa (first name) Nava-rat-num (surname). 

Incidentally, southern Indians and Sri Lankans are short people with long names. If a surname ends in a vowel the person is a Sinhali (Buddhist) but if it does not the person is a Tamil (Hindu).’ 

Guessing that the contributor of this piece is a Pakistani and that his crass identification criterion between the Sinhalese and Tamils (based on the presence or absence of vowel at the ending of the name) is erroneous, I mailed my comments to the British Medical Journal on March 1, 1990 to correct this misrepresentation. I wrote, 

‘Being a Sri Lankan Tamil and possessing a surname ending with a vowel, I was bemused to read Bashir Qureshi’s generalization…May be he also has not heard the surname of the present Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Muthuvel Karunanidhi. In fact, numerous Dravidian surnames end with the following suffixes, which have a vowel in the end: pillai (literal meaning: child), thurai and sami (literal meaning: Lord) and muthu (literal meaning: pearl).’ 

Though the British Medical Journal did not publish my correspondence (presumably because it was not of great medical interest to its readers), one of the editors wrote a courteous letter thanking me for taking the time to clarify the matter and he assured that my comments would be passed on to Dr.Bashir Qureshi, who wrote the original piece. 

In this regard, it is relevant to reproduce a portion of another letter which appeared in the reputed British science journal Nature of Feb.17, 1983, under the caption ‘South Indian names’. It was written by one M.V.Ramaoa. He noted, 

‘The way the surnames are derived is different in the four South Indian states. The Andhras and the Kannadigas derive their family name through the paternal line, all generations having the same family name. The Tamilians have as their surname their father’s given name with no constant family name. The Malayalees (of the state of Kerala) have two family names, one from the paternal line and the other from the maternal line, the males carrying the constant paternal family name and the females carrying the constant maternal name.’ 

That is correct. The Tamilians (whether they live in Tamilnadu, Eelam, Singapore or Malaysia) traditionally do not carry a constant family name. But now, with computerisation of so many documents including the vital ones such as passport, the necessity to create a family name has to be satisfied. Every individual living in the diaspora is free to create (or chose) his or her family name. 

I would suggest that rather than having one initial (standing for the father’s name), Eelam Tamils need to add another one, which would ideally be a place name (of birth or long-term residence). Traditionally, Tamils in Tamilnadu do have this practice. Examples are as follows: 

C (Conjeepuram) N (Nadarajan) Annadurai

N (Nagarkoil) S (Sudalaimuthu) Krishnan 

Here, the place name appears as the first initial in the name of the person. To make a distinction, Eelam Tamils can put the place name as the middle name (or the second initial). For example, 

V (Velupillai) V (Valvettiturai) Prabhakaran

K (Kathamuthu) A (Amirthakali) Si(v)Ananthan 

By this means, Tamils living in the diaspora can honor their place of birth or long-term residence in Eelam, and they will create an identity which will help the future generations of Tamil progeny to trace their roots. 

In the past four decades or so, family names have been found to be useful in a variety of genetic and demographic studies. I will list some of the titles of research papers which illustrate this trend. 

1.     ‘Surnames and cancer genes’ (Human Biology, April 1989). 

2.     ‘Ethnicity determination by names among the Aymara of Chile and Bolivia (Human Biology, April 1989). 

3.     Analysis of marital structure in Massachusetts using repeating pairs of surnames (Human Biology, Feb. 1992) 

One of America's leading geneticists, James Crow, who authored the now classic paper entitled, "Measurement of inbreeding from the frequency of marriages between persons of the same surname" in 1965, had proposed the use of surname analysis as a tool in the investigation of population genetics. 

Why the Tamils of Tamilnadu and Eelam have not adopted the surname system, like the Western countries, is a worthy question to ponder. But now, the time has come to unite with the rest of the world to initiate the trend of using first, middle and last name. I would propose that Eelam Tamils in diaspora, consider using the name of place (of birth or long term residence in Eelam) as their middle name. 

William Shakespeare might be correct in writing that oft-quoted line, ‘What’s in a name’, as long as it applies to rose or other non-human objects. But for humans, names carry much significance in life for success.