Roman Polanski, Polish film director, has been in the daily news here in Switzerland because of his arrest and subsequent imprisonment. After a point, the news became stale but it raised my curiousity about his name. I asked myself,  “why do most Polish surnames end in – ski/cki/dzki ? ” The answer to this question led me to some interesting cultural learnings(?!).

In Polish language, “ski/cki/dzki”(masculine) or “ska/cka/dzka” (feminine) are adjectives that mean one of these – of/from/nobility. So, Kowalski means “of Blacksmith(Kowal)” and Bradowski means “lord of Bradow”. So Polanski might mean “of Poland”.  My curiosity now increased and I started looking for similarities in other languages. And I started with Russian names.

The common Russian names end in “ov, ev” for men and “ova, eva” for women. Apparently these mean son and daughter respectively. Hence the names like Kasparov, Gorbachev and Medevedev for men and Kournikova, Sharapova and Dementieva for women.

Then I remembered what a Dutch friend told about names from Netherlands. Many of the Dutch surnames start with a Van(of/from) and de(the). Examples – Van Gogh(meaning – from Gogh), de Groot(the large one).

The funny story behind these Dutch names is that, before Napoleon annexed Netherlands, Dutch did not necessarily have surnames. When Napoleon forced them to have surnames, the Dutch chose names to confuse or make fun of the French rulers. For example, according to Wikipedia, the surname Rotmensen means “Rotten people” and Naaktgeboren means “born naked“.

But two very interesting naming traditions come from Africa. In one of these traditions from Ghana, children are given one of the days of the week as a name. For example, Ghana’s first President Khwane Nikrumah was born on a Saturday and hence has “Khwane(Saturday)” in his name. The “Kofi” in ex-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stands for Friday(Thanks to Abhi for this information).

The second tradition comes from the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert(remember the hilarious movie series – the Gods must be crazy?). They have an exclamation/clicking sound in their names. For example, the name of the protagonist in the movie, “the Gods must be crazy”, is Nǃxau(Try to pronounce it). Watch a video from the movie here.

That brings us to Indian names. The north-Indian names follow the pattern of a first,middle and a last name. But names become somewhat complex in South India. The order of name changes a bit and it usually in this order – Father’s name, First name and Last name. In some cases, there is also the name of the place of origin. Take the case of one of the former prime ministers, P.V. Narasimha Rao. The full name is Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao.

South Indians encounter this name issue when they go abroad. For people not familiar with these long names, it is quite difficult to pronounce them. So, to make their life easy, these names are shortened. Haven’t you noticed a “Krishnan” becoming Kris, “Laxmanan” becoming “Lux”, “Gomathi Sundaram” becoming “Gomez” …..and a “Madhavan” becoming Maddy?

After all, what is in a name? 🙂

PS: Don’t miss a funny video from Stand Up comedian Russel Peters here.

Source information – Wikipedia