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Comment by prasadjoglekar | Hacker News Reader

Usually the last name is a giveaway. That said, last names are very regional in India, so someone from north India can pretty much instantly infer the caste of another north Indian, but that person would have difficulty doing the same with a south Indian last name.

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Hi, just your average American here, please forgive my lack of understanding. I was under the impression that the system of using a father's first name as a son or daughter's last name was intended to disrupt caste identification by name. Is this not the case? I'm asking genuinely. I have worked with a lot of people from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and it's been something I have struggled to understand.

I'm a Hindu and I have never heard of the system you described. All Hindus I know of inherit their father's LAST name, not their first name.

It's very common in South India. I'm a Hindu too, and my last name is my father's first name, just like my son's last name is my first name.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/what-s-in-a-name-ofte...

Tamil Brahmins usually use the father's first name as the last name for the child.

so wheras in the North, you'd have Narayan Sharma's son being named Vishal Sharma, in Tamil Nadu Sriram Narayan's son would be Vishal Sriram.

So yes, the system does exist

Due Disclosure: South Indian, not a Brahmin, but I have many friends whose names follow this system.

The British introduced that system, aligned on the Western European system (not everywhere, though, Iceland is an outlier). That's why you have people like Padmasree Warrior, one of her husband's ancestors put his profession as his last name when the British asked for one, and it stuck. Then again, many English surnames are also based on profession, one of Jimmy Carter's ancestors literally made carts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variar Is a caste who have traditionally rendered temple services. it is not related to the english word or meaning warrior. The caste name also differs from region to region. I am not sure if the person you mentioned is the same caste or a different one.

Caste does not say your ancestors did that job, caste meant a person from a particular caste could only do that job and could not take up other jobs, people from other castes could not take their jobs and were disqualified because you were not born in a particular list of families. Some castes were prohibited from getting an education and were killed for this.

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