Comments on: Lost Name

By: smartpandian

smartpandian — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:59:57 +0000

Karthik,
Its really Informative and find that Mac was scottish Gailic word which means son

and In my above comments, I thought of writing a second para as a joke but later, it gets merged with the first line and that makes the comment to appear wierd/meaning less.. sorry my poor English.

V O Chidhambaram Pillai, where Pillai actually means son but was a Sur/Caste name.

As you have said, In those olden days, to call a person (uniquely), they have used the profession, family name, father’s name, nick name etc… but now, it becomes a pseudo strict rule.

Anand,
Middle Name is also an additional identifier for a person.
World uses differently in different places. As far as Application forms were considered, It is always optional field.. So mostly, I would omit it.

By: Anand Muthu

Anand Muthu — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:16:11 +0000

good thought
But , Still I have a doubt , What is middle name?

By: Karthik

Karthik — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:08:32 +0000

I cannot tell if you really appreciated the info or you are being sarcastic
I like to think of it as the first…

By: smartpandian

smartpandian — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:05:42 +0000

Well said.. Karthik.. Thats more Informative..
espescially.. McDonald ..
in McDonalds, I used to have McChicken Sandwich .. (Son Of Chicken Sandwich)

By: Karthik

Karthik — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:38:44 +0000

The idea behind the surname/last name is to distinguish people with the same first name…(between a Arun Annamalai and a Arun Thomas )

there are a number of ways these were formed in the west.. the use of father’s name as surname is not done nowadays.. but has been around for a long time… for eg.. Peterson -> ‘son of’ peter… Johansson -> ‘son of’ John, ‘MacDonald’ -> means ‘son of’ Donald..

the surnames were also based on one’s occupation… for eg. Smith -> must have been a blacksmith, Fletcher -> must have made arrows… etc…Gardner, Carpenter, Shepherd(reminds me of the fat and bubbly umpire David Shepherd ), (Harry) Potter… etc

By: smartpandian

smartpandian — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:33:08 +0000

Remember, the successive kings of Chozha, Pandya, Chera. They always had their surname tied to their name. Surname and Maiden Name is not because of the British rule. But, may be due to English application form..

I have also noted that in HP, but never thought about that when i was reading Ponniyin selvan.

It seems like, Earlier in TN, we used family name, and then, it becomes a caste name. Then it becomes Father’s Name.

By: Vignesh Kumar

Vignesh Kumar — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:40:48 +0000

In US/UK, the last name is the family name, isn’t ?
And one more thing related to this is, there people will refer using last name unless you are very close, when they start calling by your first name, or if u ask them to call as `so and so’ !

( I actually did a research in this stuff, with HP series as to who all referred people using their first names, and who all with their last name, he he he )

You must also have researched about Mother’s maiden name ??
Probably this particular thing might again due to the British rule over here..