Why Tamilians Drop Their Last Names

When my father filled out my birth certificate, he shortened his last name, Venkatachalam, to Venkat in what he told me years later was a “last-minute decision.” In doing so, he broke with not just one naming practice but two: children taking the father’s surname and one my family has practiced for generations — children taking their father’s first names as their last names. 

In the southernmost Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil diaspora — unlike in many other Indian subcultures — this latter patronymic naming practice persists. Some famous examples include actors Dhanush and Trisha Krishnan. For them, their last name is their father’s first.

“My Dad always told me that we take our father’s names, but he hasn’t really given me a proper reason — other than that it was their decision two generations ago,” Keshav Anand, a student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told me. But the answer lies in one anti-caste movement, almost a century old.