Answers.Body: <p>(Partial answer)</p>
  <p>Looks like there's more variation in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name" rel="noreferrer">Indian names</a> than one might think at first glance.</p>
  <p><strong>R Praggnanandhaa</strong> appears to be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name#Tamil" rel="noreferrer">Tamil name</a>. In this kind of name, Praggnanandhaa is the given name, and Rameshbabu is the name of the father. You can see this also from Praggnanandhaa's sister's name, R Vaishali, where the 'R' is also short for Rameshbabu.</p>
  <p><strong>Gukesh</strong>'s name is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_names" rel="noreferrer">Telugu name</a>. The last name is given first, then the given name (this naming style is also the way Chinese, Korean, Japanese and a few other countries' names work). Wiki also says &quot;Unlike western names, where family name often takes prominence over given name, in the Telugu-speaking states, a person is well-known by their given name, often without ever hearing their family name&quot;. Hence Gukesh's name is Gukesh, and his last name is not commonly spelt out. This does beg the question of why Gukesh's name is not given as D Gukesh. I don't know, unless it's to do with the Western name ordering of giving the first name before the last name.</p>
  <p>Finally <strong>Vidit</strong>'s name appears the easiest to understand for Western audiences, since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name#Goan" rel="noreferrer">Goan names</a> are just first name - middle name - last name.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-04-23T03:37:13.840Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-04-23T03:37:13.840Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allure
Answers.Body: <p>Actually, there are 2 questions here.</p>
  <p>For the 1st question, I guess lacking space.</p>
  <p>For the 2nd question, This has <a href="https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1227/how-is-this-indian-name-question-on-topic">nothing really to do with chess</a>. It's an Indian name thing.</p>
  <p>Vidit Gujrathi's 'given name' is Vidit, but the 'family name' listed is 'Vidit' not 'Gujrathi'.  In India, some don't have like 'family names' exactly but some kind of 'patronymics' like their last name is the given name of their dad or something. Like if I'm 'John Smith' then my children could be 'Ashanti John', 'Bidatz John', etc. See the following for explanation:</p>
  <ol>
  <li><p><a href="https://reddit.com/14j7rk8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://reddit.com/14j7rk8</a></p>
  </li>
  <li><p><a href="https://reddit.com/14oex7n" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://reddit.com/14oex7n</a></p>
  </li>
  </ol>
  <p>There's a table there, that I've copied below. Notice how Tania Sachdev is the only anomaly (unless Vishy is an anomaly too. Not sure). Either Wikipedia is wrong or Tania is from a part of India that the others aren't or something.</p>
  <div class="s-table-container"><table class="s-table">
  <thead>
  <tr>
  <th style="text-align: left;">Player name on Wikipedia</th>
  <th style="text-align: left;">Given name</th>
  <th style="text-align: left;">Last name</th>
  <th style="text-align: left;">Wikipedia refers to them by</th>
  <th style="text-align: left;">Which comes 1st given or last name?</th>
  </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Rameshbabu Vaishali</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Vaishali</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Rameshbabu</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">last name</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Praggnanandhaa</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Rameshbabu</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">last name</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Vidit Gujrathi</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Vidit</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Gujrathi</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Viswanathan Anand</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Anand</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Viswanathan</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">last name</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Koneru Humpy</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Humpy</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Koneru</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">last name</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Tania Sachdev</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Tania (I think?!)</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Sachdev (I think?!)</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">last name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Harika Dronavalli</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Harika</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Dronavalli</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Nihal Sarin</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Nihal</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">Sarin</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  <td style="text-align: left;">given name</td>
  </tr>
  </tbody>
  </table></div>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/vppaH.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/vppaH.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-04-23T04:09:35.473Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-05-31T00:43:12.873Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2024-05-31T00:43:12.873Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: BCLC
Answers.Body: <p>Telugu names always had surname first and generally just the letter.
  Only recently as Telugus migrated out a lot both within India and outside, we have started to put our surname last. So D. Harika is now written as Harika Dronavalli. Praggnanandhaa is also a Telugu living in Tamil Nadu for a couple of generations and has now changed their naming style to include father’s name.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-26T01:50:59.217Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-09-28T18:13:48.470Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2024-09-28T18:13:48.470Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Suresh
Answers.Body: <p>Perhaps theirs a character limit when registering names in FIDE, or it could be personal preference.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-04-11T09:14:25.580Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-04-11T09:14:25.580Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Monnt
Body: <p>(Not sure if this is a chess question, but it is inspired by chess.)</p>
  <p>As I write this, the 2024 Candidates tournament is in progress. There are three Indians in contention: R Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi, and Gukesh D.</p>
  <p>Why is it that their names are spelt this way, instead of in full (Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Dommaraju Gukesh)? For that matter, why is Praggnanandhaa's last name spelt out while the first name is abbreviated, while the opposite is true for Gukesh, and neither is true for Vidit? Furthermore, why do people refer to Vidit as Vidit instead of Gujrathi (c.f. people also use Nepomniachtchi, Caruana, Abasov, etc., and not the first name)?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-04-11T12:15:09.300Z
Comments.Text: My suspicion is it's a collision of what name part is easier to pronounce for the general public, the (resulting) oft used shorthand used to uniquely refer to them , and maybe a pinch of personal request.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Rewan Demontay
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-04-11T15:04:43.987Z
Comments.Text: I remember an interview of Anand explaining he was amused how his patronym Vishwanathan (i.e. his father's name) had been confused for a occidental firstname and became the basis of his nickname "Vishy".
Comments.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-04-11T15:08:37.250Z
Comments.Text: On the official website of the event, https://candidates2024.fide.com/players , Vidit's name is even given in full "Vidit Santosh Gujrathi". It is the only one expanding on two lines, so I don't think a lack of space is the reason why Gukesh' and Pragg's nams have been abbreviated. Maybe the web designer was afraid of mispellings ?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-04-12T21:48:37.150Z
Comments.Text: As I understand it, names in India don't all fit into the Anglo-American (not even universal in all of Europe) standard of first (given) name and last (family) name.  Worse yet, even different parts of India have different norms regarding how people have and use their names.  It's not surprising that attempts to shoehorn a naming schema from a foreign culture onto a culture where the schema doesn't fit results in lots of inconsistent awkwardness.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Alexander Woo
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-04-13T13:04:45.287Z
Comments.Text: Just a note that most people refer to Hikaru by his first name. Magnus, too.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Steve Bennett
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-05-31T00:35:56.147Z
Comments.Text: so you're asking 2 questions 1 - abbreviation 2 - interchanging 1st and last name?
Comments.UserDisplayName: BCLC
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-05-31T00:40:27.823Z
Comments.Text: @SteveBennett actually, there are 2 questions here. for the 2nd question, Vidit Gujrathi's 'given name' is Vidit, but the 'family name' listed is 'Vidit' not 'Gujrathi'. It's an Indian name thing. Nothing really to do with chess. In India, some don't have like 'family names' exactly but some kind of 'patronymics' like their last name is the given name of their dad or something. Like if I'm 'John Smith' then my children could be 'Ashanti John', 'Bidatz John', etc.
Comments.UserDisplayName: BCLC
Tags: <candidates>
Title: Why are the Indian Candidates' names spelt the way they are?
ThreadText: # Why are the Indian Candidates' names spelt the way they are?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2024-04-11)
  
  (Not sure if this is a chess question, but it is inspired by chess.)
  
  As I write this, the 2024 Candidates tournament is in progress. There are three Indians in contention: R Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi, and Gukesh D.
  
  Why is it that their names are spelt this way, instead of in full (Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Dommaraju Gukesh)? For that matter, why is Praggnanandhaa's last name spelt out while the first name is abbreviated, while the opposite is true for Gukesh, and neither is true for Vidit? Furthermore, why do people refer to Vidit as Vidit instead of Gujrathi (c.f. people also use Nepomniachtchi, Caruana, Abasov, etc., and not the first name)?
  
  **Tags:** candidates
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: My suspicion is it's a collision of what name part is easier to pronounce for the general public, the (resulting) oft used shorthand used to uniquely refer to them , and maybe a pinch of personal request.  
  > **username_2**: I remember an interview of Anand explaining he was amused how his patronym Vishwanathan (i.e. his father's name) had been confused for a occidental firstname and became the basis of his nickname "Vishy".  
  > **username_2**: On the official website of the event, https://candidates2024.fide.com/players , Vidit's name is even given in full "Vidit Santosh Gujrathi". It is the only one expanding on two lines, so I don't think a lack of space is the reason why Gukesh' and Pragg's nams have been abbreviated. Maybe the web designer was afraid of mispellings ?  
  > **username_3**: As I understand it, names in India don't all fit into the Anglo-American (not even universal in all of Europe) standard of first (given) name and last (family) name.  Worse yet, even different parts of India have different norms regarding how people have and use their names.  It's not surprising that attempts to shoehorn a naming schema from a foreign culture onto a culture where the schema doesn't fit results in lots of inconsistent awkwardness.  
  > **username_4**: Just a note that most people refer to Hikaru by his first name. Magnus, too.  
  > **username_5**: so you're asking 2 questions 1 - abbreviation 2 - interchanging 1st and last name?  
  > **username_5**: @SteveBennett actually, there are 2 questions here. for the 2nd question, Vidit Gujrathi's 'given name' is Vidit, but the 'family name' listed is 'Vidit' not 'Gujrathi'. It's an Indian name thing. Nothing really to do with chess. In India, some don't have like 'family names' exactly but some kind of 'patronymics' like their last name is the given name of their dad or something. Like if I'm 'John Smith' then my children could be 'Ashanti John', 'Bidatz John', etc.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 4 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_0 on 2024-04-23. Score: 9
  
  (Partial answer)
  
  Looks like there's more variation in [Indian names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name) than one might think at first glance.
  
  **R Praggnanandhaa** appears to be a [Tamil name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name#Tamil). In this kind of name, Praggnanandhaa is the given name, and Rameshbabu is the name of the father. You can see this also from Praggnanandhaa's sister's name, R Vaishali, where the 'R' is also short for Rameshbabu.
  
  **Gukesh**'s name is a [Telugu name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_names). The last name is given first, then the given name (this naming style is also the way Chinese, Korean, Japanese and a few other countries' names work). Wiki also says "Unlike western names, where family name often takes prominence over given name, in the Telugu-speaking states, a person is well-known by their given name, often without ever hearing their family name". Hence Gukesh's name is Gukesh, and his last name is not commonly spelt out. This does beg the question of why Gukesh's name is not given as D Gukesh. I don't know, unless it's to do with the Western name ordering of giving the first name before the last name.
  
  Finally **Vidit**'s name appears the easiest to understand for Western audiences, since [Goan names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_name#Goan) are just first name - middle name - last name.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2024-04-23. Score: 2
  
  Actually, there are 2 questions here.
  
  For the 1st question, I guess lacking space.
  
  For the 2nd question, This has [nothing really to do with chess](https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1227/how-is-this-indian-name-question-on-topic). It's an Indian name thing.
  
  Vidit Gujrathi's 'given name' is Vidit, but the 'family name' listed is 'Vidit' not 'Gujrathi'. In India, some don't have like 'family names' exactly but some kind of 'patronymics' like their last name is the given name of their dad or something. Like if I'm 'John Smith' then my children could be 'Ashanti John', 'Bidatz John', etc. See the following for explanation:
  
  1. <https://reddit.com/14j7rk8>
  2. <https://reddit.com/14oex7n>
  
  There's a table there, that I've copied below. Notice how Tania Sachdev is the only anomaly (unless Vishy is an anomaly too. Not sure). Either Wikipedia is wrong or Tania is from a part of India that the others aren't or something.
  
  | Player name on Wikipedia | Given name | Last name | Wikipedia refers to them by | Which comes 1st given or last name? |
  | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
  | Rameshbabu Vaishali | Vaishali | Rameshbabu | given name | last name |
  | Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa | Praggnanandhaa | Rameshbabu | given name | last name |
  | Vidit Gujrathi | Vidit | Gujrathi | given name | given name |
  | Viswanathan Anand | Anand | Viswanathan | given name | last name |
  | Koneru Humpy | Humpy | Koneru | given name | last name |
  | Tania Sachdev | Tania (I think?!) | Sachdev (I think?!) | last name | given name |
  | Harika Dronavalli | Harika | Dronavalli | given name | given name |
  | Nihal Sarin | Nihal | Sarin | given name | given name |
  
  [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/vppaH.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/vppaH.png)
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2024-09-26. Score: 2
  
  Telugu names always had surname first and generally just the letter.
  Only recently as Telugus migrated out a lot both within India and outside, we have started to put our surname last. So D. Harika is now written as Harika Dronavalli. Praggnanandhaa is also a Telugu living in Tamil Nadu for a couple of generations and has now changed their naming style to include father’s name.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_7 on 2024-04-11. Score: -3
  
  Perhaps theirs a character limit when registering names in FIDE, or it could be personal preference.
  
  
  ---
  
  