Bangladeshi name

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Personal names in Bangladesh may depend on the person's religion, ethnicity, or region of origin.

Given names

Many Bengalis in both West Bengal and Bangladesh have two given names: a bhalo nam (lit. "good name"), which is used on all legal documents, and a dak nam (lit. "call name" or "Nick Name"), 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 Anoop Saha may be called by his dak nam (e.g. Bablu) at home and a his bhalo nam (Anoop) elsewhere. Many people also have a shortened version of their bhalo nam (e.g. Deepu for Deepak, Faru for Farhana, etc.) in addition to their full bhalo nam and their dak nam.

Recently, many Bengalis have begun to add their dak nam to the end of their full official name, resulting in names like Saifuddeen Chowdhury Kanchon, where "Saifuddeen" would be the man's bhalo nam, "Chowdhury" would be his family name, and "Kanchon" would be his dak nam. In these situations, this man would be correctly addressed "Mr. Chowdhury", not "Mr. Kanchon".

Muslim family names

82-89% of the people of Bangladesh are adherents of Islam, and because of this, they mostly use Arabic names. Native and foreign names are also used, as long as they are not strictly related to other religions. Among Muslims of Bangladesh, there are several different naming conventions. There is no fixed scheme for the structure of names.^[1] Many people do not use a family name, so members of a family can have different last names.

Common traditional Muslim (Perso-Arabic) surnames include -

• Ahmed/Ahmad
• Akhtar
• Alam
• Ali
• Begum
• Choudhury/Chowdhury
• Faruk/Farouk/Farooq
• Hasan
• Haq/Haque/Hoque
• Hussain/Hossain
• Ishtiaque/Ishtiaq
• Islam
• Khan
• Khatun
• Qureshi
• Rahman
• Reza
• Shah
• Sultana
• Mohamed/Mohammad/Mohammed
• Muhammad
• Muntasir
• Uddin
• Ullah
• Zaman
• Imam

Muhammad or Mohammad is a common prefix used before the name of many Muslim males, and it is 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 Muslim prefixes include Gazi, Kazi/Quazi, Khan and Shah. The prefix often serves as the first name and the given name appears as the last name/surname.

Hindu family names

A Hindu Bangladeshi will have a given name, maybe a middle name, and a family name. The family name is usually based on caste.

After marriage usually the Hindu woman's family name is changed to husband's family name or, in communities that don't use family names, the husband's given name.

Common traditional Hindu surnames include -

• Basak/Boshak
• Bhattacharji/Bhattacharya
• Bose/Basu/Bashu
• Chokroborti
• Dash/Das
• Dei/Dey
• Dat-ta/Dutta
• Ghosh
• Guha
• Gupta/Gupto/DasGupta/SenGupta
• Ghost
• Lahiri
• Maitra
• Mojumdar/Majumdar
• Roi/Roy/Ray
• Shaha/Saha
• Sinha/Shinghi
• Pathak

Few surnames like Chowdhury/Choudhury/Chawdury (which means "king") and Mojumdar (which means "record-keeper") are used by Hindus and Muslims alike.

Christian family names

The naming conventions of Bangladeshi Christians mainly follow local Anglo-Indian and Portuguese traditions. A combination of native given name and Christian surname is also common.

Common Christian surnames include -

• Costa
• Gomes
• Gomez
• Rozario

Buddhist family names

Buddhist Bangladeshis have several common last names, such as Baruah, Mutsuddi etc.

References

1. ^ Understanding Communities:Bangladeshi Community, Cheshire County Council, October 2003.