“What is in a name?” asks Shakespeare in his most loved play
Romeo & Juliet, “that which we call a rose by any other would smell as
sweet”.
As one travels to Himalayan countryside in Himachal to find people putting Ta-Ta in their names is not because of its overwhelming brand appeal of Indian conglomerate Tata. Be it the Priety Zinta, Deshta, Panta, or the tongue twisting Sasramta, Persingta, Khanolta all of these one could easily find in telephone directory of Shimla district.
Origins to these surnames one finds in the tradition of
associating village-name or the ancestor’s or the family elder’s names along
with given names to specify one’s identity. This practice ending with letters
–ta, is most particular to the coming under the erstwhile Shimla Hill State,
which had later merged with parts of Punjab ranging under foothills of Shivalik
Mountain to form today’s Himachal Pradesh.
An earlier version of the blog by the same author had
featured detailed list names here.
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