Hindu Names

The most common languages in India are the Indo-European group descended from Sanskrit - Hindi, Gujerati, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi - which are spoken by about 70% of the population (circa 500 million) in Northern and Central parts of the country. Sinhalese, spoken in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), is also from this group. Sanskrit names tend to be compounds due to the popularity of the names of gods or their titles but are often written as separate words (Ram Gopal not Ramgopal). In the South, the Dravidian languages - Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam - are spoken by between 20 - 25% (about 100 million) but many names are of Sanskrit origin due to Hindu influence. Very few Dravidian names are widely used.

Urdu, the main language of Pakistan, is also spoken in North-West India, especially by Muslims. It is very similar to Hindi but contains many words borrowed from Arabic and Persian (Indo-Iranian) and is written in Arabic script. Until Pakistan was created by Partition in the 1950s, there was an even greater mix of cultures and religions within India. To some extent, they had been kept artificially peaceful by the rule of the British Empire. This also created conflicts however, and produced the separate class of Anglo-Indians (those with any quantity of European blood, no matter how small) with their own traditions and prejudices.