Dear sirs,
would you please share with us the root meaning of syrian christian names such as Koshy, ninan, oommen, chandy etc..
Alex
dallas

Hi Alex,
The shortened version Alexander is sandy.
Chandy must be the Malayalam version of Sandy.
George
Bangalore

Again another thought full topic, thanks for sharing this information.

Good work!!…Biblical names substitued with sanskrited names is ok..but with just ryhing words is funny…..and it doesnot even have a meaning….jincy priny ..jerin jobin jibin…sibi simi.shanu manu .The meaning ful christian names shouldnot be substitued with meaning less string of rhyming words…..Now a days any two syllabes joined together forms a syrian christian name!!!!!

the future generation should understand the values of such gr8 syrian names nd should start the whole process from square one .Thanx 4 such enlightening information

Thanks for the apt paraphrasing of S. G Pothen’s “The Syrian Christians of Kerala” Ch V. Well done.
What about the origins of Nazranee names he
hasn’t listed, like Kuruvilla, Korula, Koruthu,
etc?

Thanks for the information. I am new to Kerala and now I understand the true meaning of such beautiful Christian names.But most of my friends have names such as Tiji, Siji, Aji, Liji, Biju, Shiji, and so on and its so difficult to understand as to whether they are boys or girls.

thanks for the info..i too agree fully with
mathew about the two syllable names. My
mother’s name is lysamma andmy dad thankachan.
my mom told me that an aunt of mine suggested
to name me liti. i still thank them for
rejecting the suggestion

Hello

Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!

G’night

Excellent. I have always wanted to know a little about my family name MUTHALALY. You have shed some light. Thanks.

I have been wanting to know what my name meant. Where did we get IDICULA from? Please help.

It is written that the name ipe comes from Joseph. Can anybody elaborate on that or suggest some links.

In S. G Pothen’s “The Syrian Christians of Kerala” (Asia Publishing House, New York, published in 1962 I believe) Ch V deals with SYRIAN CHRISTIAN NAMES. Here, several Syrian Christian names and their equivalents are listed; this includes “Joseph (Yesoph, Ouseph, Ipe)”.
Trust this is helpful.

The information on origin of names was so informative and eye opening and I was seeking after this information for long. I propose my sincere and special thanks for your valuable information and I really acknowledge that your work is really commendable and deserve special mention. May God Bless You.

SIMILARITY BETWEEN NAZRANEE AND SHEPHARDIC JEWISH CUSTOMS IN NAMING CHILDREN

In his book ‘The Syrian Christians of Kerala’, S.G. Pothen outlines the Nazranee Syrian Christian convention of naming children as follows:
“The first or eldest son is given the name of his paternal grandfather and the eldest daughter the name of her paternal grandmother. The second son bears the name of his maternal grandfather and the second daughter the name of her maternal grandmother. There is freedom of choice in naming other children, who are sometimes given the names of uncles and aunts.”

In fact in the case of Nazranee children what has been traditionally observed is that after the grandparents’ names have been given in the sequence outlined above, the next to be given are the names of uncles and aunts on the paternal side first and then the maternal side.

Compare this with the naming conventions among the Sephardic Jews. http://www.orthohelp.com/geneal/yohasin.HTM mentions:
Common Sephardic Naming conventions
Firstborn son named after the paternal grandfather,
second male child after the maternal grandfather,
first daughter named after the paternal grandmother,
second female child after the maternal grandmother,
next child after the paternal uncle or aunt,
next after maternal uncle/aunt,
etc.

The similarity is amazingly clear! This is just one of the several Hebrew-Jewish customs & traditions the Nazranees have been practicing for generations, often unaware of the Hebrew link and their Hebrew heritage…

Amprayil,
That was an important point. I have added it to the article.

Jacob Idiculas
Idiculla should be a derivative of Itty.

Kuruvilla
Kuruvilla would have been derived from Korah, son of Esau.

Thank you.

Just stumbled on this. Now I am really into discovering about the Syrian Christian religion and its rich history.
This one gives talks about our last names.Thanks

I am a Syrian Christian; my brother’s first name is KOSHY.
It is a common name among Kerala Christians often wondered is it connected to any biblical name? Can some one help?

Dear Samuel Jacob,

You read the article once again. It is already mentioned there that “Koshy” and “Easo” came out from the Biblical name “Joshua”.

Lovingly

The surname Devassy and Devassia are I believe derived from St. Sebastian/Sebastianos/Devasianos

My Grand Father’s name was “Ipe” and was wondering from where this name came. Now I got it. The common name among Syrian Christians namely “Thankachan, Ponnachan , Aniyankunju, Achankunju” etc. also to be sorted out.
Thanks for the information on names, titles etc.
Mathew (Aniyankunju)

thank you, olikara, for that splendid catalogue of suriani kristhiyani names and their variants and western equivalents!

is it not true, however, that ‘john’ came from ‘yohannan’ rather than the other way round? i suspect that the british have been mispronouncing christian names for centuries. notice that the northern european pronunciation is closer to the original hebrew; for example, in german, the ‘j’ is invariably pronounced just as an english ‘y’ is, and ‘johan’ is pronounced as ‘yohan,’ which is nearly the same as the hebrew name.

i didn’t know that korah is/was a hebrew name. still, i wondered how korah evolved into kuruvilla. here’s my possibly not-so-credible attempt at showing the evolutionary sequence:

korah –> korappiLLa (young korah? similar to chanDappiLLa) –> korupilla –> korubilla –> koruvilla –> kuruvilla.

voila! kuruvoila!!

kuruvillechan

kuruvillechan,

You are right. John is the english form of Iohannes, which was the Latin form of the Greek name Ιωαννης (Ioannes), itself derived from the Hebrew name יוֹחָנָן (Yochanan) meaning “YAHWEH is gracious”.

Ref: http://www.behindthename.com/name/john

However what I wanted to illustrate here is what Syrian Christian names actually stand for. Yohannan is certainly the root for John but when it comes to relating names one ( a layman, not a linguist) often relates it to the commonly heard Western ones, in this case Yohannan relates to John.

Yes you seem to have got how Kuruvilla came from the root Korah too. You find Korah in the book of Genesis as the son of Esau.

Incidentally, Pilla in old Tamil (incidentally the spoken language in kerala till 600-800 A.D. when a gradual sanskritisation of our language started) also mean ‘respectable man’.

Thank You for the useful comments again.

very wonderful and informative article just wondering the origins of 2 common nasrani names cyriac & joy

Thank you Olikara for this illuminating post!

One of my great, great grandfathers was called Istakkiachan, and I presume Istakki is another variant of Isaac (Yitzhak).

But I sincerely doubt that Kuriakose is derived from Zechariah. It is instead from the Greek name Kuriakos, meaning ‘belonging to the Lord’. In English it is sometimes spelt as Cyriac.

I had a great-uncle who was called Scaria, which is undoubtedly a form of Zechariah.

Is it certain that Kurien is from Zechariah? I always thought it was a Malayalam contraction of Kurios (Lord). My great grandfather was a Kurien, and I was always told that it meant we were descendants of priests or bishops. Does anyone have any information on this?

very interesting ,but its difficult to figure out how names like mammen or oommen derive from thomas could u elaborate

I always thought Eapen was a derivative of Stephen, the first deacon and martyr.

My understanding has been that Kuruvilla and Korula are derived from Koorilose (Cyril) and not necessarily from Korah, but I am open to correction if it can be proved otherwise.

Regarding Mammen and Oommen, they could have been derived from Thommen which is but another form of Thomas.

Is there any information on the origin of the name “Cherian”? Is there an Armenian connection there? Or is it something else?

I understand most Armenian surnames end with an “ian”. It is the “ian” ending in “Cherian” that makes many (including some Armenians) mistake it to be an Armenian name…
The Syrian Christian / Nazranee name Cherian, and also Kuncheria, Karia and Scariah, are understood to be derived from Zachariah.

The name Kuruvilla is a derivative of kuriakose which was the youngest saint recognized by the eary church…the story goes that this six year old boy named Kuriakose was being burned at stake with his mother for not renouncing their faith. The legend says that the six year old convinced his mother to not give up her faith as they were being burned alive.

St.Kuriakose and his mother St.Uleethy is mentioned in the Indian Orthodox church writings. If anyone has the time and zeal, please do check into this.

Thanks
God Bless

Naming a child after their grandparents doesnot strike a chord with me. It seems a trifle repetitive and boring to me apart from the routine cultural lingo attached to the naming ceremonies.

for e.g. a male child who has a name Joseph Thomas Chalil, his father’s name would be Thomas Joseph Chalil, his grandfather’s name Joseph Thomas Chalil. so you can see it seems a little silly to me and this particular pattern would have been repeated ad infinitum.

I feel that there must have been a shortage of adequate christian names during the older times where as today there are plenty of good christian names avoiding the intials which go as names today. Some people say it’s a honour to the parents but there are different ways of honouring your father/mother that too in a age where many don’t care for their parents in their trying times. Also nowadays many have a single child.

Carrying on the family name I feel is more honourable than many who hide their family names and show their father’s name as surname which they feel is more decipherable to others and thus avoid the embarrassing situations there long surnames create.

RE: “I feel that there must have been a shortage of adequate christian names during the older times where as today there are plenty of good christian names”

I don’t see how the number of “Christian” names would have ever increased or decreased across time. The number of Christian names now equals the number of Christian names five centuries ago which equals the number of Christian names twenty centuries ago.

Of course, what makes a name “Christian” anyways?

Shelly,

To add one’s paternal grandparent’s name is a community tradition and atleast today, this name is limited to, as a baptismal name (palliperu) for church records. Children are given another name for other purposes keeping the grandparents name in church records and still preserving the tradition.

Since we have this option of having both ‘baptismal name’ and ‘given name’ it shouldn’t be a big problem nor carry any marks of boredom or confusion. We can always be innovative and still preserve originality.

And as u have said nowadays family names have been omitted. There is a reason for this in many cases. For those residing/settled outside Kerala it is better we avoid adding the family name.

From my personal case, I earlier had my family name added to my name for all purposes here in Mumbai. Then most of the locals here including official documents, due to their negligence/non-understandability, generally make spelling mistakes in the family name as it’s difficult for them to pronounce or write exactly, which ultimately leads to a lot of legal hasles later… name changes, corrections, etc… I had faced this problem many times. Finally I opted to add my father’s name in place of surname.

Another thing u must note is, Nasranis don’t have a “surname” system as such, like there are surnames like Nair, Nambudiri, Menon, Khan, Sheikh, D’ Souza, Pinto, etc….. which indicates origins besides family. So our system of family name is different from the ‘surname system’.
Also note, nairs have a family name as well as the surname tag ‘Nair’ added to their name but we dont have anything like that !

We may probably think of adopting a common surname like “Nasrani” besides individual family names otherwise an arguement like “surname” for us is not justified by calling our family names as surnames

The concept of ‘surname’ is different outside Kerala though ‘family name’ sounds overlapping.

Another convention I have seen in southern kerala.

FamilyName followed by fathersName and last is yourName (which is mostly grandfathers name or some other respected patriarch of the family). This I have seen in our fathers generation pre-independance.

Did anybody observe this?

As far as the name and order is concerned, nasrani traditions are very confusing indeed.

The name Koshy

I cannot see how it came from Joshua

I thought it came from kosher??

Hi all,

There are many family names which sound not of local origin nor have any meaning in Malayalam or Tamil. Similarly some others sound very obscure or even out-of-the-world as a Keralite. What could be the origins of such family names ?

Another thing which struck me is the Syrian xian family name ‘Koreth’ which is seen in Trichur dist. Firstly this has no meaning in local language if Im not wrong. Secondly I was searching for its prevalence in other languages and found one surprisingly….

The famous Judas, the traitor, is called as Judas “Iscariot”. Iscariot, is the family name of Judas and thats the english translation family name. In Aramiac language, Iscariot is ‘Koreth’. This can be found as footnotes in the english RSV Bible.

So could that Suriani family name ‘Koreth’ have any Aramaic origins since its not of local origin sounding or meaning ?

So also many ancient Biblical place names (and therefore may be these were taken as family names by the then people) in and around early ‘Greater Israel’ area end in “-eth” or “-ath”. This suffix has a Hebrew-Aramaic origin. And many Malayalam family names end in “-ath” or “-eth” too. So does this tradition of family names in Malayalam has an influence from the Aramaic language usage of the suffixes ? Sanskrit or Tamil language doesn’t have such a usage or addage to indicate a place/surname.
(Again if Im not wrong this suffix to family names or surnames is not used outside Kerala)

There are many more such family names which are meaningless and origins remain a mystery….

Jackson: Koreth and Korah. Now we have a fair idea where it came from. Nice post.. interesting..

Also the family name ending with ‘eth’ may be true! Mine is one of that.

Now:

I heard a theory of Mahabali being a christian. And I found that Onam is an OT personal name!

I am not speculating any wild theory my dear folks (about previos post last line).. just mentioned and may not ever have any relevance..

An interseting article for the folks in and around cochin:

TIME TRAVEL TO A POSSIBLE SELF:
SEARCHING FOR THE ALTERNATIVE COSMOPOLITANISM OF COCHIN

http://www.sarai.net/open-place/time-travel-to-a-possible-self/cochin.pdf

Where does the name eapen come from?Are Syrian christians genetically related to Jews of Israel or are they converts?

Dear all,

You have to understand that Koruth is not a surname. It is either his name or his father’s name. Hence it could be a name with hebrew origin. It looks like Koruth is a vaiant pronunciation of kuriakose-kuruvila-cyril etc as proposed by Kuruvilla earlier in the thread.

Regarding the convention of family name- father’s name- your name, it is a way of telling the name in the old malayalam. eg. *****veettilil thomas varghese means****veettilil varghese ‘s son thomas. especially in official documents etc.

Dear Thomas Antony,

I was not speaking of “Koruth”, but “Koreth”. And ‘Koreth’ is surely a family name, not a name of an individual. I have a Nasrani family friend who has that family name (veetumperu) hence I presented it here. Sounds interesting …

This is found in Thrissur area, I dont know about its prevalance down south.

Dear Jackson,

You may be correct. I have heard of family names like karettu etc which means “in a higher land”

Did we have a convention of keeping surnames in south india ? Even family names ? As far as I understand, south indians adopt a family name from the place they live. even when they move. For example, a paddy farm near to my family house is about 350 para area- 35 acres. All the people living around this farm use 350-il chira as their house name for all official purposes. Many of the family names in Kuttanadu originated like this. When they move to another area where they have 38 para of farm, the name changes to 38 parayil !!
Nair, pillai etc are not surnames, they are caste names. There are tharakans, mappilas, panicker etc which are surnames granted by kings to certain individuals. We can see panicker in christian, nair, ezhava etc communities.
I agree there were famous family names like pakalomattom kalikavu shankarapuri etc.

Re Eskay’s comment about the convention of family name- father’s name- individual’s name, this is seen in all communities including christians and hindus. This may have originated from the traditional document writers- adharam ezhuthukar- to identify and document an individual correctly as a verbal picture like ***** veettil varughese ‘s son thomas..

There exists some naming practices ( Family names )among Northists in our premises (Ayarkunnam) like Karutha Puthiyidam / Velutha Puthiyidam, Velutha Naduviledam/ karutha Naduviledam ……………..

The name Muthalali.

Some time before I was reading a book titled “Killing Mr. Lebanon” written by Nicholas Blanford, published in 2006 by I.B.Tauris &Co. Ltd. It is a book on the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Mr. Rafik Hariri.

Something caught my attention in the Preface of the book. On page ix, I read thus:

“…… and helping facilitate interviews; I am also indebted to Amal MUDALLALI for helping arrange key interviews with the Hariri family and staff; enormous thanks go to Joshua Landis………………”

So here we find a Lebanese lady (yes, I checked and Amal is a female name in Lebanon) using the surname “MUDALLALI” !!!

And we thought we got this name from Kollam!!!

This is worth an investigation.

Dear Jospeh,

MUDALLALI

Good spotting Joseph and better still good judgement that we should await investigation.

May I become a critic?

***************************************************
Lebanon & Emirates General Land Transport
Product & Services: TRANSPORT COMPANIES

Address:P.O. Box 86605, Dubai, United Arab EmiratesTelephone:+971 4 3202455Fax:+971 4 3202466Email:customer.service@lebanon-emirates.aeKey Persons:Ahmed Mudall Ali – Managing Director

http://www.constructionweekdirectory.com/com-73201-Lebanon_Emirates_General_Land_Transport

*******************************************************************************

Your information was interesting to me. So I went to Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Holmes told me that the name is ‘Mudall Ali’ and not ‘Muthalali’. The name malabari Muthalali is a name bestowed upon those favoured by the Rajas of yesteryears in Kerala apart from what it normally names, ie. ‘estate/shop/house/business owner’. (Mr. Holmes is my uncle and he never stops accusing me of spending/wasting too much time in knowing about my forefathers 2000 years ago while ignoring my relatives living today.)
I just reached home after the discussion and the first thing I did was to hunt in Google and I got the above information and the site address. Mr Holmes was uncannily right. It is Mudall Ali and not Mudallali.

…and you know, I like John because he is fighting for his faith. I love fighters even if he is my opponent. I enjoyed all with him.

After I became (regained) ‘Nasrani’, little of matters of fatih bothers or threatens me. Is this awareness only in me or is it shared by all other ‘Nasranis’?

Ali means “the exalted one”.What does Mudall mean in Arabic or Aramaic?

logic and reasoning in above posts commendable. would some one shed some details on
names like Itty, Ittyerah, ittyavirah etc,

Itty – Issac – Issahac – ittak (Ithak)- itty

Ittyerah, ittyavirah – Issac Abraham – Ittak Avaran – Ittyerah, ittyavirah

Hope that helps

What about pappachan (and pappy)?

Pappachan (short pappy) – Pavam achayan(south)/achan(north)/appachan ?

Plausible. Thanks. I never thought it as a nick name!

Pappy may be from Bawa which means father . Pappy – Pappa – Bawa

Benney’s comments makes more sense

On ‘Itty”, Ittyyerah etc.
I asked a lot of ittys the origin and meaning of the name Itty. While a good no of them were ignorant of the meaning or the Christian equivalent of Itty, some were positive that Itty was Abraham. since they could not support this by any logic, I refused to accept that
Then I realised that most of those ittys were actually Ittyyerahs or Itty Avirahs. since Avira is abraham, Ittyerahs were abrahams. When Ittyerah was shortened just to Itty, their chrisian names remained as abraham and they in turn felt that Itty was Abraham.
However, we have Itty eipes, Itty cherias,etc Itty eipe is Eipe, Itty cheria is Cherian – and they are NOT abrahams. So what is Itty. Now we know that Itty is a prefix. say like “Kunju” in kunjumon, kunjchacko,Kuncheria etc. Even malayali Muslims have got it Ex Kunjali ie Kunju Ali.
We knoe the meaning of Kunju but what is Itty as a prefix. I know a Nair gentleman named Itty Rarichan.
Rarichan is a name by itself. (Remember ‘Rarichan enna Powran”). then I came across women having Itty as a prefix or as name itself- like Itty amma.
So Itty is a prefix not only for Christians buit for hindus also. Inshort Itty is a Malayalam prefix.

The next question is ‘What does Itty’ mean as a prefix. We have ‘Kutty’ as a common suffix for all coomunities and for men as well as women-Ex George kutty,Govindan Kutty, Ibrahim kutty-Mariakutty, Laksmi Kutty etc. we know the meaning of kutty
But what is ‘Itty” as a prefix. I welcome your opinion. I can hazard a guess. In Malayalam (colloquial), ‘ITTU’ means a little. Can Itty be derived from “Ittu” and mean “littl’ judst like ‘kutty’
The bottom line is that ITTY, strictly speaking is not a name by itself but onla pre fix-the meaning of which is not clear but could mean ‘kunju or ‘kutty’

Dear All,

Very interesting to read. I should have been a Chandy goign by Mr. Pothen’s article. But my progressive parents christened me Amrith. Though I love my name, there are times I wished I were a Chandy. In order not to miss out the syrian lineage, I insisted that my daughter has my father’s name as surname. So, she is Aniya Amrith Kurien.

I am in The Gambia. While SIGNING MY driving licence WAY BACK IN 1997, the Gambian authorities mis-spelt my surname as KURTEN. So, in their records I am AMRITH KURTEN.

@Kuruvilla

(copy right held by the author – Kurien verghese)

Kuruvilla- english equivalent Cyril

Origin- Original greek name -koorillos- (most of our SC names have greek origin simply because the new testament was written in greek and our forefathers took their names from the Bible-especially from the New testament- so we have Markose, Lukose,Pathrose.Paulose etc. in Malayalam also. cut out the ‘ose’ suffix and you get the english equivalent-like Mark. Luke, PATHR,(Peter) ,Paul etc. Pathrose is actually PATHARose and as you know Pathar in Hindi (and other languages) is rock or stone.

Coming back to Koorillose- or Kurillose ,a favourite name for Bishops of the Orthodox churches- we get K urull -after omitting the suffix ‘ose’- this Kurill became Kurulla and later Kuruvilla. Korula is another version of kuruvilla or kurulla- as we know the pronounciation of not only names but malayalam words differ from region to region especially between the North and the south kerala. this led our famous SC journalist Pothan Joseph to remark once that malayalam consists of two languages written in the same script!

How are Cyril and kuruvilla one and the same name.? In English, ‘C’ is a substitute for the sound ‘K’. So when koorllose lost the suffix ‘ose’ and became Koorill or Kurill,somebody substituted ‘C’ for “K’ and it became Coorill ; or write Coorillose and cut out the suffix and one gets Coorill . In greek, the ‘U’ or ‘OO’ sound is denoted by the letter.Y’. as in Syria or cypress. Syria is correctly pronounced as ‘SURIA” hence ‘ suriani chrisriani’. the correct name for Cypress in greek is Kuprose as in the malayalam Bible. Here K becomes C and ‘U” becomes Y and Kuprose becomes cypress and Kurill becomes CYRILL or cyril.

trust I havent confused you with this long explanation!

Syrian christians have an identity crisis at present. Originally we never had a surname. Now many are compelled to take their fasther’s name as surnames. so Thomas son of Mathew becomes thomas mathew and Mathew is considered to be his sur name. But his wife refuses to be called Mrs Mathew. she says she is the wife of Tjhomas, Mathew is her father in law. she wants to be known as Mrs Thomas.. so they go out ofor parties as Mr Mathew and Mrs Thomas. sometimes the wife agrees to go by the husbands surname.She accepts the name as Mrs Mathew. But Mr Thomas Mathew has a couple of sons. He wants his children to bear his name. result. His sons are enrolled in thechool as Abraham thomas and Benjamin Thomas.. so Mr Mathew’s children are are thomases.. this is the identity crisis syurian christians are facing now. first Mr. Mathew’s wife is Mrs Thomas – His children are Thomases..

Eapen, Punnen, Punnoose, Esthappen, Estha are all derived from Stephen.

The greek form of Stephen is Stephanos. It is plausible that the name in earlier times was pronounced as “Esthepanos” in Kerala

The names Esthappen, Estha etc come from the first part of the name ‘Esthepan’ Much like the spanish Esteban

Eapen comes from the middle portion ‘epan’ and

Punnen, Punnoose comes from the last portion ‘panos’

I agree with the above comments / views of Mr Abraham -dated Feb 23, though Mr S G Pothen and Mr olikera have opined that Eapen is derived from Job. It is also quite possible that a short name may represent or is derived from two different names. For ex. the name ‘Bert’ (BERT) could be the short form of Bertrand, Herbert, Robert, Norbert etc So it is possible for eapen to have derived from Job as well as Stephen. Yet I am inclined to agree with Mr abraham above.

I must congratulate Mr Olikara for writing an excellent article on Syrian christians and the nazrani names. it is unfortunate that many of our people go about without understanding the meaning or origin of our names. Mr Olikara has done well to kindle many such peoples interst in their own names.

Mr Olikara has written that Verghese is from George, Ouseph is from Joseph etc. Strictly it is not correct. If Iam not mistaken, what he meant was that the english equivalent of varghese is george, of Ouseph is Joseph, etc

Olikara has treated Maria and mariamma as two names.I would suggest the common suffixes like .amma, achan, kutty kunju (and also prefixes) to be ignored when we dicuss the meaning or origin of names – we should treat Mariamma, Maria kutty, Kochu mariamma etc asall one name -Maria

Secondly, we should not worry about the English spellings of names- varghese, verghese, Varughese, Virghesese, etc are one and the same name. (I am told that a few years ago, the Malyesian govt passed an order saying that officially the name Mohammad will have only one spelling, though more than a dozen diiferent spellings was prevalent there,)

Thirdly we should give very little reliance on names as they appear in English .The English are well known for murdering and mutilating names. Jesus was NOT known as jesus among his people – he was Yeshu, as in the malayalam Bible, Mary was maria ( they made Mynmar into Burma, Kollam into Quilon, thiruvananthapuram into Trivandrum!) Biblical names are more correct as they appear in the malayalam Bible.

OK, I will quit now-sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Can anyone tell me if there is any history which talks about possible Syrians Christians converting to Hinduism? if so what can be their Surnames ??

Hi Deepthi,
There are many instances though most of them are on the female side owing to them having to take upon the religion of their husbands.I know of some from my family.But on the male side it is rare,though a few years back some guys belonging to prominent familes converted.The reason they gave was Christ is a myth..To accomodate them ,they were given the title of Nair.
Also I suspect the advisor of the Cochin Raja ,the Paliath Achan could have had Christian ancestors

Deepthi:

Regarding conversion to Hinduism. I assume you mean in the old days and not in recent times. For this:

Go and look at the site – “westasianmigrantsthulasserymanapurathu.org”. This is about a family, Thulassery Manapurathu, which claims to descent from West Asian immigrants who came with Mar Sabor and Mar Aproth in the 10th century or so.

In it, there is a reference to the little known conversion of some Persian Christians to Hinduism and Islam. No further details are provided, however. But it’s a starting point for you.

Next, check our Lingerings of Light by Whitehouse on Google Books. In it you’ll find a discussion of a community that existed alongside the Christians in Kayamkulam. They did convert Hinduism in the 18/19th century to escape their low social status.

Thanks John for those references

Dear John,

That family site sounds amazing with the amout of contents and point of accuracy it contains. It shows the level of research applied to present it and the capability to see beyond “stories”. You can literally make out it is not the “regular-stuff-like-any-other family site”.

It also explains in brief ‘why’ we call ourselves “upper-caste” inspite of knowing ‘most’ of us are Semitic immigrants or settlers.

This is one of the most unbiased and accurate family history sites I have ever read. Thank You.

Dear All / John Mathew,

I just was pondering over the following statements in the above article:

“Many Syrian Christian families followed a unique custom that they shared with the kerala Hindus of adopting a male member into their family on his marrying a girl from theirs. The boy would then carry the family name of his wife. This would mostly happen when a family had no male heirs to carry on the family name.”

If I am not wrong, that explains “dhetthu-kalyanam” or “adoption marriages”. So in that case if a Hindu boy enters a Nasrani family marrying a girl from the latter and is adopted such that he now adopts the family name of the paternal side of his wife then his own history or ancestry translates into a Nasrani one down the ages.

So over a long time it might be totally forgotten that another male line entered into an already existing male family lineage. Now consider this boy who entered was a Brahmin and after marriage was Christianized for adoption. So in that case a newly introduced parallel tradition will run in the family that claims Brahmin ancestry (due to this single male lineage). So a single paternal family line may have two different traditions and get overlapped over-time.

This when tested in genetics will give two different ancestral results for the same paternal family which is now one or related and might not be aware of the past happening. So it might confuse if this concept is not understood.

And some of the Nasrani families surely had adoption marriages, so it is natural that the same family may have mixed or overlapping traditions or one replacing the other as time passed by and one gained prominence over the other for whatever reason !

So all of them claiming a descent from a particular family that existed in ancient times “may not” be actually same in the above case.

Dear John Mathew,

The above is a practical and unavoidable thing that happened in history which also says all claiming a particular tradition may not be justified factually, be it a family descent claim or ancestry/lineage claim !

This is what must have been one of the possibilities in mixing our West asian history/traditions with a later added local history/traditions as the two started overlapping down the line, variably !

Therefore I said, do not assume that all Pakalomattam (or any other family claim as the case may be) claiming guys will show the same results ! There is a practical case in our database which I know of having given such a varied result for the same related family. Hope I clarified myself and also answered your earlier doubt.

It was interesting to read about the possible origins of the name “itty”. For a long time, i was under the impression my family was the only one with the name “kochitty” circulating around the members. But with social networking sites booming, a few others also have been found.

do any body know the history of the family name painadath or pynadath???there are both catholics and jacobite syrians residing in and around angamaly..Thanks

Baiju:

Regarding Pynadath, you shouldn’t have any problem tracing the history of your family. It’s a well known family; many Orthodox bishops (including the famous St Athanasios Paulos) come from that family, and they seem to be quite proud — so you should be able to find some written books on the subject in India, or at least a family history.

The following site may be helpful as a start, but it also contains some general inaccuracies. Apparently your family came from Arthat.

http://tripatlas.com/Vayaliparambil%20pynadath

Its cool to have biblical names… i feel great when people call me thomacha or thomas kutty….
or vinuchaya….

My parents are from Latakia, Syria. My father’s name is Aziz Mikhail Jouban. Please tell me about the Jouban name. We pronounce it Joe-ban.Is it an Arabic name or maybe Egyptian?

Can anyone tell me the origin of the last name Kourth? My grandpa’s last name was Kourth. I searched for this name on the internet but it seems like Kourth wasn’t a common name in Kerala. I even typed in the name Kourthu but got no results. The only place the name Kourth was common was in Greece.

Re. Kourth-or Kourthu

I think the name is Koruthu which is not an uncommon name, among syrian christians.The general understanding is that Koruthu is a variation of Korah, which is derived from ‘Kuriya’ or rather ‘Kuriye’.( ‘kyrie’- the letter ‘y’ is pronounced as in ‘U’). The common names Kuriyakose and Kurien are derived from the above Kuriye. In the orthodox churches we generally hear the chant ‘Kuriye Elaisson’.or more correctly ‘kyrie eleison’ It is greek. It means ‘Lord, have mercy ” and Kyrie or Kuriye means , ‘Lord’.

K.Verghese

Thanks for the explanation Kurien, but I still didn’t get an explanation on the name Kourth and not Koruthu. It makes no sense that my family are the only people with that name. I don’t think it’s a family name unless I ask my family members directly. It’s hard to find another Syrian Christian with the same name other than a family member.

Pls let me know from where does the family name Nezhuvingal and Alakkatu originate. Pls let me know.

Australia

I have already given some in puts on the article by Mr Olikkara.Pl see posts 9532,10780.12294 etc. I didn’t want to say any thing further till I got a chance to read Mr. S G Pothen’s book on ‘Syrian Christians of Kerala’, to which Mr Olikkara had referred to. Unfortunately I could not get hold of a copy till about a month ago when Mr.Pothen’s brother’s wife graciously agreed to lend me her copy. There is only a small chapter on ‘ syrian christian ‘ names and Mr Olikkara has given all that is in that.Almost verbatim. There fore whatever observations I made earlier on Olikkara’s article apply to what Mr Pothen had written in the book. Mr Pothen’s book was an excellent work on syrian christians, when it was published fifty years ago.His subject was syrian christians and not syrian christian names. He thought it appropriate to add a chapter on syrian christian names but it does not appear that he carried out any serious study or research on the origin and meanings of syrian christian names.

Re; honorific names like Tharakan, Muthalali etc , I humbly submit that I have a different take. Acc.to Mr Pothen ( and quoted by mr Ollikkara) the word THARAKAN originated from the English word TARIFF and means tariff /tax collector. If I am not mistaken, the tittle Tharakan was prevalent in Kerala even before the advent of the English in Kerala, Even otherwise,it appears to be a bit far fetched for a tariff collector to become tharakan. My submission is that tharakan does not mean tax collector. The word THARA was common in Malayalam- the word ‘Tharawad’ originated from that. Thara means floor, house (Pulayan’s thara), Thara is the Malayalam counter part of the Hindi word ‘zamin’. Zamindar means ‘Land lord’-one who owns lot of land. Zamindar is a title or honorific name in North India and Bengal. Similarly Tharakan was a title for one who owned lot of thara or land. Tharakan meant zamindar.

As for Muthalali, it is quite interesting and amusing to look for its meaning in west asia but we should not look for complication when simpler explanation may suffice,. The words Muthalali and thozhilali are common Malayalam words, Muthalal is the capitalist -one who has capital or money and thozhilali is one who depends on his labour, Muthalali was a title bestowed on some people by the local rajahs or rulers in recognition of their wealth.

–k,verghese

Re: origin of the name ‘GEORGE’. How does one connect vargheses with george, and for that matter JOSHUA with KOSHY.?

As we have seen , the original greek name was GIORGIOS and how Giorgios became gee varghese and then got shortened to varghese.

“g’ has two sounds-one like ‘J” as in GEM, GERM and another as in GOD, GOOD etc Substituiting the ‘J” sound for’ “G” in GIORGIOS, one could pronounce it as’JIORJIOS’ or GEORGEOS. Pl remove the greek suffix ‘os’ from georgeos and one would get GEORGE. So the greek name GIORGIOS became GEE VARGHESE in Malayalam and GEORGE in English. Its meaning? GEO (GIO) means the Earth. So george or giorgios meant one who is Earthy- a farmer.

As Mr Pothen has pointed out in his book, GIORGIOS/GEEVARGHESE/GEORGE is not a name from the BIble.-yet Varghese is one of the most popular names among Nasranis.

Joshua and Koshy. The name Joshua {Yoshua) used to be written with ‘G’ instead of ‘J”. Something like ‘GOSUAE’; Since G’ has a ‘k’ like sound (God, good, etc), Gosuae got pronounced as Koshuae and it became Koshy, in Malayalam. Yoshua and yeshu are one and the same name and means saviour.

ZACHERIA and cheriyan, Just drop the ZA from ZA CHERIA and one would get CHERIA. Malayamise it with an ‘N’ ending-it becomes cherian!

Very nice article. Any comments on my name – Tertius? Wondering if there is any Malayalam equivalent..

So nice to read this blog. Can anyone say from which name “Eapen” originated from ??? Is it from Stephen or from Job ???

Eapen is Stephen
Stephanos -> Esthappanos (malayalam) -> Esthappan(shortened) -> Eappai -> Eapen

(Stephanos was the first Christian Martyr – stoned to death in Jerusalem, well documented in Acts)

Eapen- Stephen or Job

Much to be said in favour of both.Let us take stephen first.
Decades ago, I met an Epen who was the proprietor of a firm called Stephen and Co. He told me that the biblical name for epen was stephen. Of course, this does not prove that Epen was derived from stephen but it shows that even decades ago, one or some epens believed they were stephens.

Phonetically Stephen is much nearer to stephen than Job. Stephen and epen (eapen)sound similar. In written english, just remove the first ‘St’ from stephen, one gets ephen!

Now let us take JOB. Job and eapen are phonetically very removed. -But the Malayalam version of Job in the Bible is Iyyob. This Iyyob could be further Malayalmised by adding an ‘en’ or ‘an’ at the end like most malayali names – raman, krishnan, kurien, mammen, mathen etc. so it becomes Iyyoben.Malayalam is akin to Tamil and is a dravidian language where very often ‘b’ or’ba’ sound is substituted by ‘p’ or ‘pa’ sound. ex. In tamil, Bhagyam is ‘Pakyam’ and Bata is written as Pata. So Iyyoben got pronounced as Iyyopen. In trichur area, eapen is pronounced by many as E-appen. I knew a person who used to be called Eayappen. so it is reasonable to believe that Iyyopen became Eayappen and Eapen.

Mr Sidney Pothen in his book says Eapen is Job- (Job, Iyob,Iyoben, Eapen). so it is for you readers to decide whether Eapen is Stephen or Job.Pl let us have your views.

Perhaps it could be both. In English, ‘Bert’ could be the short name for Bertrand, Herbert, Robert, etc So, we can satisfy the supporters of Stephen and Job by considering epen as the Nasrani version of both.

By K.Verghese