Ramaiah, Kotaiah, Subbaiah, Venkaiah are history. Well, not exactly.
There are a few like me who are still around, but it is unlikely that
such names will be around for too long now. So will be
Ravamma, Kotamma, Subbamma and Venkamma. These names transformed into
Rama Rao, Koteswara Rao, Subba Rao, Venkata Rao and Rama, Subbalakshmi,
Venkatalakshmi and such. But their days are numbered too! Well, may be
not days; they may be around for another 3-4 generations. These days, one
frequently comes across Telugu people with names like Ramesh, Suresh,
Navin, Sunil and Anjali, Vandana, Mrudula, Thrpthi, Vipula etc.
I have been thinking about these names. To me, there are two striking
trends in these names. First, the names are, generally, no longer the
abbreviations of the names of some Gods and Goddesses. Not that the
people have suddenly become less religious. In fact, I don't believe
there is any decline in the religious belief in the Telugu population.
Second, and I think this is the more troublesome one, the male
names like Suresh etc do not obey Telugu grammar, no matter whose Telugu
grammar you subscribe to. After all, any name that ends in a consonant
cannot be defined as a Telugu name. In the villages, where most people do
not have English education, Subhash is pronounced as Subasu and Venkatesh
is but Venkatesu. Then, of course, there is no problem. But what do you
do with the educated, sophisticated folks who say they are Telugu and
call themselves Suresh and Sunil? I don't know, but that is not what I am
interested in. What I want to know is, how did this happen? Which
influence was responsible for naming Telugu children with
non-Telugu-sounding names?
I have a hypothesis. I find that this type of names are appearing among
Tamils too! Probably among other language groups also. That suggests that
whatever the influence, it is not unique to Telugu people. Well, this is
what I think. The influence is probably from Bengal. During the last
several generations, there have been a lot of social, religious, literary
and reformist winds that reached the Telugu area (and other regions of
India) from Bengal. In my opinion, the biggest such influence probably
was due to Sarat Chandra's novels. His novels have been very popular not
only in AP but all over India. In fact, I can't think of another Indian writer
whose works are as widely translated and in such numbers as Sarat's.
It is not uncommon to find a Sarat's novel in Telugu without any
attributes about when it first appeared in Bengali, when it was first
translated into Telugu, who translated it etc. As you all know, Sarat's
male characters (and they deserve to be called characters!) generally
have names ending in consonants. Also the trend of giving such names has
become popular after the 30s and 40s which coincides with the popularity
of Sarat's novels.I wonder if Sarat's novels are responsible for the
influence!
What do you think?
Sitaramayya Ari.