As said by Ari and rAmArAvu elsewhere, many of the current
"prathamA vibhakti" suffixes for personal names are imports
of prathamA vibakti pratyayAs of other cultures, mostly those
of the BengAlIvAru. (My own suffix "Prasad" (which I dont normally
use) being no exception). Thus we have Prasads, Vermas, Choudharys,
Guptas, yAdavs, lAls, dutts suddenly in the Telugu land over the
past half century. (Isnt time we enriched this list with some
gujarAti Patels, marAthi "kars", UP & bengali ThAkUrs or few
other titles like "Ar" or "an" from our (next door) Tamil brethern ?).
Perhaps this borrowal of titles adds continuum to the history of other
title loans like "Sastry, Sarma, bhaTTu" etc mostly by brAhmins during
the past. In some cases these titles are the result of migration from
other states.
Yes, I feel a little stupified that we no longer hold the popular
rAmayya, venkatESwarlu, subrahmaNyam or kOTESu of our fathers
and grandfathers as dear to us and they seem to sound cacophOnic to our
ears. Even more disturbing to me is the contemporary mania for "artham
lEni andamaina renDaksarAla, lEdA mooDakshrAla pErlu" like "ASa,
AScharyX, lAsya, nIha, abhay...." most of which are sound like titles
of old Hindi films and BengAlI novels and are often used by contemporary
Telugu fiction writers for catching readers' attention. My conjecture
is that any good Sanskrit or HindustAni adjective will soon be turned
into a fashionable name for all next generation TeluguvAru.
So much for my share of crying about old-fashioned names !
- Hari Krishna