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Comment by devnonymous | Hacker News Reader

If you were born outside of India, it would be pretty much like any other national /racial identity -- inferred from family (based on family names for instance). Like mentioned in the GPs write-up:

> Unlike race, it’s easier to hide your caste, especially in a new country. Many dalits change their official last name to something common enough that it’s hard to identify them.

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There's touches of that elsewhere too (hiding race or ethnicity with a name change.) I have an extremely unusual surname in Canada, and most North Americans don't recognize it as European in origin, which has led to assumptions in the past. My grandfather said he considered changing it to something English in the 50s, but ultimately he kept it. I know that, at least historically, some Christian Arabs, Jewish people, probably others, have adopted "white" names upon immigrating, too.

Quite a few essentially had Americanized (or for Canada... idk, Canadized? Anglicized? somebody tell me the best word for that :) ) names forced on them upon immigration.

My mother's ancestral Norwegian last name wouldn't have worked particularly well in English, my own last name of Danish origin survived unscathed for obvious reasons.

Depending on the region of Canada, I would say 'anglicized' or 'French-fried.'

Canada is in the Americas, so Americanized seems fine to me.

I used to wonder if the name Yingling was Asian, but it turns out to be the same as Yuengling the beer, which is an odd but phonetically correct rendering of Jungling with the umlaut. ("Youngling")

Will Weng, the longtime New York Times crossword editor, throughout his life had people (including me) who thought he was Chinese.

That is another Germanic one, probably related to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_(surname)

>"Europe

Scandinavia

Wang is also an unrelated surname in Sweden and Norway. It is a variant spelling of the name Vang which is derived from the Old Norse word vangr, meaning field or meadow.

Germany and Netherlands

Wang is also a surname in the German and Dutch languages. The name is derived from Middle German wang/ Middle Dutch waenge, which is literally "cheek". However, in southern German, its meaning, "grassy slope" or "field of grass", is similar to the Scandinavian surname."

Ah, like how in my home country, it’s a ‘well known fact’ that people lower on the economic ladder like to give their children foreign sounding names, whereas people that are well off give their children traditional, and even double traditional names.

Guess the country :)

That's common but sometimes the cause is not what you would think.

In Spain there are many people with foreign or uncommon names... that are also biblical names. Abraham, Sarah, Aaron, Jonathan or Josuah (Josué) were unheard half a century ago. Now they're usual.

Why? In part, because Evangelical missionaries were more successful in poor quarters, specially among gypsies.

Also there's the famous actors thing. But now Vanessa also sounds natural enough.

Probably these names were actually prohibited half a century ago, when only the (Castilian Spanish) names of Catholic saints were allowed

Biblical names forbidden? I don't think so.

Actually not even foreign names. IIRC only names that were insulting or prone to be laughed at were forbidden.

During that time the civil servants working at the registry had ample provision to decide what names would or wouldn't fly, and many made up their own rules. This led to quite different rules in different parts of Spain.

That being said, these were civil servants under a fascist catholic dictatorship, so you can imagine that the range went from "only catholic saint names in spanish" to "if it sounds spanish-enough to me I'll allow it". Foreign names (John) were not allowed in most cases, just like they didn't allow names in any of the other languages of spain such as Joan (catalan), Jon (vasque), Xoán (galician).

Thailand

I guess it’s more common than I thought xD

Italy?

Do they choose names that are Brahmin or generic names that can't be associated with caste, including non-Indian names?

If the latter, is it reasonable to assume that Brahmins in power are likely not only discriminating against those who are Dalit, but also discriminating against those that they know are not Brahmin (Indians and non-Indians) in favor of Brahmins?

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