[FactolSarin]

What is the deal with Gukesh's last name? It's officially listed as just D on his FIDE profile. I asked a couple Indian coworkers who said it was probably just being abbreviated for being long, but honestly it's not that long of a name and Gukesh isn't from the same region as them. I've read elsewhere that Telugu speaking people don't really use last names.

[__rito__]

Gukesh's last name is Dommaraju. It's his family surname. He is a Telugu person by birth, but he grew up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. In the state of Tamil Nadu, people often take their father's given names as their last names, and always write it in abbreviation. Indian last names often disclose caste, and due to a widely influential movement in TN (see [0]), most people of TN gave up using caste-based surnames, and switched to solely using father's names. But, the father's name is often written as the first letter of that name, and the person is called like that in official places, too. Among friends, colleagues, teachers, etc., only the given name ever is used.

As Gukesh grew up in Chennai, he used his last name like that. His parents also use one name only.

Anecdote: my distant cousin, a Bengali, also grew up in TN. His parents also Tamilized his name. His name was, say, Rama Dass, and he went by and put his name as D. Rama, or Rama D.

When their family moved back to Bengal, his name was Rama Dass again.

Srinivasa Ramanujan's given name was Ramanujan, and Srinivasa was his father's name.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar

[svat]

Naming conventions vary, and when you consider names across history/geography, it is the present-day Western convention of "GivenName FamilyName" that is unusual and needs explanation.

Generally speaking, someone is born and at some point days/months later, their parents start calling them by some name, while the rest of the world might also doing so at some point, possibly different people using different names. For purposes of interacting with administrative systems yet another name may be adopted. Only when it has been necessary to distinguish between multiple people with the same name do secondary names start getting used, either occupational descriptions (John the Baker vs John the Carpenter vs John the Smith) or places where they came from or were noted for (Jesus of Nazareth, William of Orange, Leonardo from Vinci), or disambiguating with parents' names (Mohammed bin [son of] Salman, Björk Guðmundsdóttir [daughter of Guðmund]) — these are all conventions still existing today, with occasional funny consequences when someone imagines one of these to be a "family name" that persists from father to child across generations. (See "what would Of Nazareth do" about people—even otherwise educated ones—treating “da Vinci” as such.)

Coming to India: there are different conventions. Typically just a name and an initial letter (placed either before or after the name) to distinguish between multiple people (in the same classroom say) with that name. When a boy was named "Anand" by his parents, because his father was "K. Viswanathan", he became "V. Anand" in school records, and this is the name I remember reading articles about this chess prodigy in Indian newspapers. At some point the international press started spelling out his first name and called him "Viswanathan Anand", putting his father's name first, and even started calling him "Viswanathan" or "Vishy" — he used to object and point out that they were calling him by his father's name, but eventually he just got used to it and even began to like it. In this generation, this boy was named "Gukesh" by his parents, and was "D. Gukesh" in school records and news reports, but somewhat wisely they decided for international sources to put the initial after the name, so "Gukesh D", and for those who cannot handle just an initial, spell it out to "Gukesh Dommaraju".

(You have had other replies claiming this to have something to do with Tamil Nadu anti-caste politics. While no doubt that movement discouraged the use of caste names as surnames, the initial convention pre-exists any of those political movements and exists in parallel in other states too. E.g. "S. Ramanujan" was the name on his early papers before the movement being spoken of. Some families/communities use surnames (in the sense you're thinking of) and some don't; that's all there is to it.)

[alephnerd]

> What is the deal with Gukesh's last name

In Tamil Nadu, an initial is often used in the surname due to the Periyar/Dravidian movement in the 20th century. Furthermore, plenty of people in Tamil Nadu historically didn't even use surnames.

Gukesh is Telugu, but his family are Chennai natives. Chennai becoming part of TN instead of Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh was very politically charged in the early days of India.

[FactolSarin]

Ah, so it's an anti-caste thing?

[alephnerd]

Historically yes. But in 2024 it's just a naming convention now. Being Telugu in Tamil Nadu, they probably adopted Tamil naming conventions to make life easier.

States in India are basically different countries, and the existing state borders for most states don't make sense.

[benatkin]

Reminds me of falsehoods programmers believe about… https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

[atulatul]

This is good.

[__rito__]

My distant cousing, a Bengali, named, say, Rama Dass, also grew up in Tamil Nadu. His name was Tamilized to D. Rama or Rama D.- even though Dass was a family surname.

> States in India are basically different countries, and the existing state borders for most states don't make sense.

No. Huge oversimplification there. It's not definitely like oblasts of Russian Federation. Although they are not close like OR and ID.

[alephnerd]

> No. Huge oversimplification there

I mean culturally and administratively.

Heck, in my ancestral state, non-natives cannot purchase land.

> It's not definitely like oblasts of Russian Federation

It absolutely is.

Heck, my ancestral state (HP) is a merger of 3 entirely distinct ethnic communities (Lower Himachalis who are the same community as in Jammu division, Upper Himachalis who are closer to Garwhalis and Kumaounis in Uttarakhand, and Changtang Tibetans in Lahaul/Spiti/Kinnaur who should be merged with Ladakh) with no rhyme or reason because it was a bunch of Himalayan hill states that where conquered by the Sikhs, Nepalis, and later British in the 19th century and merged into Punjab, and this has caused political deadlock.

This is a common situation all over India. There's no reason that Purvanchal is lumped with Awadh, that Rayalseema is lumped with Kosta Andhra, or Barak Valley is lumped with Assam.

My Pahari family has no traditional culture in common with a Gujarati from Saurashtra or a Bihari from Bhojpur.

These ethnic (and linguistic) differences do impact internal mobility outside of Tier 1 cities.

India has been very successful thanks to it's diversity, but most states still hold colonial era borders which exacerbate regional inequalities by giving regional interests an ethnic or even religious tinge (eg. Seemanchal and Bihar).

[__rito__]

You took an extreme example (HP). But only a handful states in India have that restriction where outsiders are not allowed to buy land.

There are many all-India services and people are transferred all across India. Many work in different states than those of their home state. Same Constitution, same legal framework. Same religion.

I think if you go deeper you will notice the unifying characteristics rather than superficial differences among states of India.

And while I differ with you on Indian states being very far aways from different Russian states in terms of similarity/differences, I definitely agree with your opinion that Indian state borders don't make much sense.

[leosanchez]

> that Rayalseema is lumped with Kosta Andhra,

They share a common language ?

[devsda]

Not everything in India is/have to be about an individual's caste at all.

The most plausible and likely explanation is that it is just shortened initials of surname for convenience.

Typically indian teachers have a habit of turning surname to initials to deal with multiple students having same names. Those names tend to be sticky and students just refer themselves with initials in such contexts.

I'd be very much surprised if his official government IDs have initials and not surname.

[sashank_1509]

Not everything about India has to be about caste but this is definitely about caste even though it probably happens on autopilot now.

A social movement throughout TN, has made people give up their surnames and instead only mention their initial, so that no one can tell your caste easily. And everyone just follows that convention now. A remarkable example of a societal wide movement making real progress on societal issues without requiring the force of government.

[alephnerd]

> I'd be very much surprised if his official government IDs have initials and not surname

Not necessarily. He's from TN. Initials are fairly common.

[ganeshkrishnan]

yes in an abstract way. Same for Vishwanathan Anand (name and his fathers name with no surname) or even Sundar Pichai (name and fathers name)

[dyauspitr]

Not at all.

[meta_x_ai]

As a South Indian My name (in public school records) till I was age 21, was <name>. <initial>

I was forced to pick the last name for passport purposes and typically i either have the option of attaching my dad's name or my dad's town name.

My wife, didn't even do that and when she migrated to US, she was <name> LNU (short for Last Name Unknown). While applying for greencard we decided it was too much of a hassle for her and she attached her father's name

[hilux]

> when she migrated to US, she was <name> LNU (short for Last Name Unknown).

Interesting!

The loser of the previous World Chess Championship match was Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi. His last name means "one who doesn't remember [his last name]" -when asked by the Czar's census taker!

I guess this kind of thing happens in many countries.

[matrix2596]

Yes. I am Telugu and family name is usually not written or called out. So he would usually write D. Gukesh or Gukesh D. Most people also have a sort of middle name for example D. Gukesh Kumar. Middle name is spelled and used for calling together with main name.

[xdennis]

Wikipedia says his full name is "Gukesh Dommaraju".