Indian Name Decoder

Read this article first before looking through this list.

How to use this page:

This is an attempt to categorize several commonly used Indian names based on primary community. Knowing where someone comes from can help you develop better rapport and small talk, and it makes you look really smart.

Use the Control + F feature to find a name.
Primary communities are based on state, language, or religion, and they often overlap.
Bold text indicates near certainty that someone belongs to a certain group.
These are all surnames or family names (except the Tamil list). Given names may or may not reveal what group someone belongs to.
Please add any suggestions or corrections to the comments below!

Anglo Indians

They will often have very British sounding names such as Binny (south Indian), Clark, Anthony, Peters, Vetticad, etc. Many also have Portuguese or French names, such as D’Monte, LeBrooy, Pacheco and so on.

Assamese (Assam)

Barua
Bhattacharya (see also Bengali)
Chakraborty (see also Bengali)
Sarma
Thakur (see also Bengali)

Bengali-speaking (West Bengal, Bihar, Assam)

Notice the recurring –jee ending.

Adhikari
Banerjee
Bhattacharjee
Basu
Bhadra
Bhattacharyya (see also Assamese)
Biswas
Bose
Chakraborthy (see also Assamese)
Chanda
Chatterjee
Das or Dasgupta
De or Dey
Deb
Dutt or Dutta
Ganguly or Gangouly
Ghosh or Ghoshal
Guha
Kar
Makur
Mitra
Mukherjee
Nath
Purkayastha
Roy
Sanyal
Sen
Tagore
Thakur (see also Assamese)

Bihari

Choubey (also UP)
Dubey (also UP)
Jha
Pandey (also UP)
Ranjan
Sinha
Tiwari (also UP)
Upadhyay (also UP)
Yadav (also UP)

Christian

Many Indian Christians have western sounding names. Kerala, Goa, and northeast India have high concentrations of Christians.

Mary
George
Aaron
Abraham
Philip
John
Antony/Anto
Joseph

Goa

Goa has a lot of Portuguese influence. Many of these family names are also Catholic by religion. Unlike Anglo-Indians, they have taken on the family names of those who originally converted the family to Christianity.

Campos
D’Costa
D’Monte
D’Silva
D’Souza
Fonseca
Kamath or Kamat (see also Malayalam and Marathi)
Nadkarni
Paes
Pinto
Rosario
Silva

Gurarati-speaking (Gujarat)

In Gujarat, the father’s name is often used as a middle name

Bhakta
Chotaliya
Desai
Doshi
Gandhi
Kataria
Jadeja
Joshi
Mehta (see also Punjabi)
Mistry or Mistri (see also Parsi)
Modi or Mody (see also Parsi)
Patel
Pathak (see also Marathi)
Rana
Shah
Soni
Thakkar
Yagnik (see also Rajasthani)

Jain

Jains are their own religious group. Many will use the surname Jain. Otherwise, their names will seem similar to Hindu names.

Kannada-speaking (Karnataka)

The suffix –appa is a good indicator of origins in Karnataka.

Bhat
Bunt
Gowda
Hande
Hegde
Naik
Nayak (see also Oriya)
Shenoy
Shetty

Kashmiri (Kashmir)

Bakaya
Chetan
Kaul
Kaw
Nadeer
Nehru
Pandit

Malayalam-speaking (Kerala)

Kerala has a high concentration of Christians, so many names like Thomas, George, and John are likely to have roots there.

Chakyar
Cherian (Syrian Christian)
Kamath (see also Goa and Marathi)
Kurian (Syrian Christian)
Kutty
Menon
Nair
Panicker/Pannikar
Tharakan
Varghese/Verghese (Syrian Christian)
Varma (see also Telugu)

Marathi-speaking (Maharashtra)

Often end in –kar

Agarkar
Deshpande
Gadgil
Gavaskar
Kamath
Kelkar
Kolte
Kulkarni
Jadhav
Patil
Pathak
Pense
Ranadey
Savarkar
Shinde
Shukla
Soman
Tendulkar
Thakoor

Muslim

Muslims are found all over India, and some of their names are regional. In general, they use the letters F, J, and Z more in their names than Hindus.

Ahmed
Ali
Hussain or Hossein
Khan (occasionally used by Hindus)
Mohammed
Moosa
Mustafa
Nasim

North India

These are names that are common throughout northern India across regions and language groups, though nearly all are Hindu names. You would need to check to know exactly where they are from.

Agrawal, Aggarwal
Bajaj
Bhatia
Chaudhary or Chowdhury or many other spellings
Dahia
Gupta
Jaitly
Joshi
Malhotra
Sharma

Oriya-speaking (Odisha)

Acharya
Behera
Biswal
Dash
Diwedi
Hota
Jagdev
Mishra
Mohanty
Nanda
Nayak (see also Kannada)
Padhi
Pattnaik
Rao (see also Telugu)
Rout
Sabat
Trivedi

Parsi

It is also common to see a lot of –jee or –vala (wallah) suffixes with Parsi names

Banaji
Banerji
Cama
Davar
Dhondy
Dubash
Godrej
Guzder or Gazdar
Jamaspasana
Jijibhoy (also Jeejeebhoy or Jijibhai)
Kotwal
Madon
Mistri or Mistry (see also Gujarati)
Mody or Modi
Petit
Readymoney
Sethna or Shethna
Shroff
Tata
Umrigar
Vachha (also Wachha or Wacha)
Vimadalal
Wadia

Pujabi-speaking (Punjab, Haryana)

Arora
Bajwa
Batta
Bindra
Chandarana
Chopra
Dania
Dhillon
Duggal
Gangwal (see also Rajasthani)
Jindal
Johar
Kahlon
Kapoor
Khanna
Mehta (see also Gujarati)
Sahota
Sarin
Sethi
Setia
Verma

Rajasthani-speaking (Rajasthan)

Rawat
Gangwal
Gautam (see also Uttar Pradesh)
Memani

Sikh

Nearly all Sikhs take the religious name of Singh for males and Kaur for females. However, these names may be used by Hindus as well. Sikhs do have family names as well, but don’t often use them since they are opposed to caste.

Their first names often end in –jeet, -jit, -deep, –meet, or –inder

Other than Singh, here are some other Sikh surnames you may interact with:

Bains
Bhathal
Brar
Chaddha
Dhaliwal
Dosanjh
Gill
Grewal
Sandhu
Sindhu
Thind

Tamil-speaking (Tamil Nadu)

As a result of the socio-political movements against caste in Tamil Nadu, most Tamils don’t use family names since the family name is generally the same as the caste name. Instead, they often use an initial to designate their father or husband’s name. C. Krishna’s given name is Krishna and his father’s name is perhaps Chandrasekar. Therefore many of the names below are given names and not family names. For that reason, I’ve only included men’s names.

Tamil names can also be identified because they add an extra ‘h’ onto names. Preeti becomes Preethi. Shanti is Shanthi. Kartik is Karthik, etc.

Many names also end with -samy or -swamy (Appasamy, Ponnusamy, Krishnaswamy, Appuswamy, etc.)

Balasubramanian (Bala, Subbu, Subramanian, Manian)
Gopal
Iyengar (family name)
Iyer (family name)
Karthik
Krishnamurthy
Krishnaswamy
Kumar (common throughout India)
Mudaliar (family name)
Murali
Narayan or Narayana
Ramakrishna
Ravi
Satish
Saravanan
Senthil
Shankar
Srinivas or Srinivasan
Swaminathan
Venkat or Venkatesan
Vijay

Telugu-speaking (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana)

Achari
Chetty
Murthy
Kumar
Naidu
Raju
Rao
Reddy
Setty
Shashtri
Subbarao
Varma

Uttar Pradesh

Ahlawat
Choubey (also Bihari)
Dave
Dubey (also Bihari)
Gautam
Pandey (also Bihari)
Panwar
Thrivedi/Trivedhi
Tiwari (also Bihari)
Tyagi
Upadhyay (also Bihari)
Varshney
Yadav (also Bihari)

Uttarakhand

Bahuguna
Negi
Pant
Rawat