Kar ( , ) is a suffix used after the names of villages along the western coast of India, forming the most common surnames used by the

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

and Konkani people in

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

and some parts of

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

Etymology

The suffix ''Kar'' comes from 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 ...

, which means "making, doing, lord of", later modified to mean "hailing from" or "belonging to" in

Prakrit Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Ind ...

-based languages.

Usage

Such surnames are commonly used by communities of Konkani and Marathi ethnicities all over India. Most of them identify themselves with a place their ancestors hailed from, or sometimes with new places to which they have migrated. For example, if a person hails from the village of Borim in Goa, his surname would be '; this custom is also followed by Konkani migrants to Karnataka. If a person hails from the town of Sirsi, the surname used would be ''Sirsekār''.

References

{{reflist Surnames of Indian origin Name suffixes