Personal name A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is know ...

s in Bengali-speaking countries consist of one or several given names and a surname. The given is usually gender-specific. A name is usually cited in the " Western order" of "given name, surname". Personal names may depend generally on the person's religion and also have origins from other languages like

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

, Persian,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

and

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist '' Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Bud ...

, but they are used and pronounced as according to the native

Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken o ...

Roman mridha

Many people in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million pe ...

and

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the four ...

have two given names: a "good name" ( bn, ভালো নাম, Bhalo Nam), which is used on all legal documents, and a "

call name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...

" or "nickname" ( bn, ডাক নাম, Dak Nam), which is used by family members and close friends. The two names may or may not be at all related; for example, a man named ''"Shumon"'' or ''"Sumon"'' or ''"Suman"'' ( bn, সুমন ) may be called by his ''Dak Nam'' (e.g. bn, বুবাই, Bubai) at home and by his ''Bhalo Nam'' ( bn, সুমন, Shumon) elsewhere. Many people also have a shortened version of their ''Bhalo Nam''. For example, ''Dipu'' ( bn, দিপু) for ''Dipok'' ( bn, দীপক), ''Faru'' ( bn, ফারু) for ''Farhana'' ( bn, ফারহানা) etc. in addition to their full ''Bhalo Nam'' and their ''Dak Nam''.

Middle names

Though middle names are very common in Bangladesh, not every individual has one; this applies to West Bengal as well. Recently, many people have begun to add their ''dak nam'' to the middle or end of their full official name, resulting in names like "Saifuddin Kanchon Choudhuri" (), where "Saifuddin" would be the man's ''bhalo nam'', "Kanchon" would be his ''dak nam'' and "Choudhuri" would be his family name. "Saifuddin Kanchon Choudhuri" could also be written as "Saifuddin Choudhuri Kanchon" ''dak nam'' in the end, depending on the choice of the person, how he/she displays their name. In these situations, this man would be correctly addressed "Mr. Choudhuri", not "Mr. Kanchon".

Family names

The Bengali Muslim Families mostly use names of

origins followed by Farsi, and Bengali. Among Muslims of Bangladesh, there are several different naming conventions. There is no fixed scheme for the structure of names.Understanding Communities:Bangladeshi Community
Cheshire County Council, October 2003. Many people do not really use a family name, so members of a family can have different last names. The system of usage of different family names in the same family may also be followed by non-Muslims due to the dominating name style of not having same family names in a family by Muslims in Bangladesh. The Bengali Hindu Families use names of

origins, followed by Bengali. They use many names which are listed below. Some of their names are somewhat shortened and altered, like Chatterjee, due to British influence. Some family names may be common between all religions like: (Choudhuri / Chowdhury), (Sorkar / Sarker / Sarkar) and (Bishwas).

List of common family names by a person's religion

Muslim family names

Hindu family names

Initials and prefixes

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monot ...

(), Mohammed, Mohamed, Mohammad, Mohammod, Muhammod is a common prefix used before the name of many Muslim males, and it is often not considered as the name used to refer to the person. In many cases, the "Muhammad" prefix is shortened to ("Md.", or "MD."). Other common prefixes are not systematic. The prefix often serves as the first name and the given name appears as the last name/surname.

References

{{Names in world cultures Bengali names

Bangladeshi Bangladeshis ( bn, বাংলাদেশী ) are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centered on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay. Bangladeshi citizenship was formed in 1971, when the ...

Bangladeshi culture Indian culture