Personal name A personal name, full name or prosoponym (from Ancient Greek ''prósōpon'' – person, and ''onoma'' –name) is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known. When taken together as a word-group, they all relate to that on ...

s in Bengali-speaking countries consist of one or several

given 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 f ...

s and a

surname In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

. The given is usually gender-specific. A name is usually cited in the " Western order" of "given name, surname", though the practise is neither adopted from the West nor universal. Personal names may depend generally on the person's religion and also have origins from other languages like

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

and

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

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

Bengali language Bengali, also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Bangla (, , ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. ...

First names

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 and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

and

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

have two given names: a "good name" (), 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 f ...

" or "nickname" (), 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"'' () may be called by his ''dak nam'' (e.g. ) at home and by his ''bhalo nam'' () elsewhere. Many people also have a shortened version of their ''bhalo nam''. For example, ''Dipu'' () for ''Dipok'' (), and ''Faru'' () for ''Farhana'' (), in addition to their full ''bhalo nam'' and their ''dak nam''. Furthermore, the “first name” may also be a part of a name as a whole. For example, “Abd al-Rahmaan” (pronounced Abd-ur-Rahman in Arabic nominative case) is a name in and of itself, but when cited in a Bangladeshi legal document, the first part “Abdur” is often cited as the “first name” and “Rahman” is cited as the “last name”.

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

Bengali Muslim families mostly use names of

origin, followed by

Farsi Persian ( ), also known by its endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoke ...

and

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

. 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 because of the dominating name style of not having same family names in a family by Muslims in Bangladesh. Bengali Hindu families use names of

origin, followed by

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

List of family names by a person's religion

Muslim family names and titles

Bengali Hindu family names and titles

Bengali Buddhist Surname Barua/Borua Bengali Christian Surname Many Bengali Christians use English and Portuguese surnames along with traditional surnames. Most Catholic Bengali Christians have Portuguese surname, such as: Gomes, Rozario, D'Costa, Gonsalvez, Cruze, Dias, D'Silva and D'Souza.

Initials and prefixes

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

(), 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 middle name or last name.

References

{{Names in world cultures Bengali names Culture of Bangladesh Culture of India