How India was given its name?
India (given name)
India is a feminine given name derived from the name of the country India, which takes its name from the Indus River. The name was used for India Wilkes, a character in the novel and movie "Gone with the Wind". Its use for girls in England began during the British rule in India during the 19th century. It has been used for daughters of aristocratic families in England that had ties to Colonial India, such as India Hicks. Just like names derived from seasons like Summer, Dawn, Solstice, Autumn are feminine, India is internationally recognized as a female name since it is the name of a country and it had been used as a feminine given name for more than hundred years in England and the U.S. Although India is a feminine given name in the world, it is not a popular given name in India. Girls who are given this name are usually called with a nickname "Indy", or "Indie" which are also given names for girls in English speaking countries.
Aryan
"Aryan" () is a term that was used as a self-designation by Indo-Iranian people. The word was used by the Indic people of the Vedic period in India as an ethnic label for themselves and to refer to the noble class as well as the geographic region known as "Āryāvarta", where Indo-Aryan culture is based. The closely related Iranian people also used the term as an ethnic label for themselves in the Avesta scriptures, and the word forms the etymological source of the country name "Iran". It was believed in the 19th century that Aryan was also a self-designation used by all Proto-Indo-Europeans, a theory that has now been abandoned. Scholars point out that, even in ancient times, the idea of being an "Aryan" was religious, cultural and linguistic, not racial.
Names for India
"Hindustan", as the term Hindu itself, entered the English language in the 17th century. In the 19th century, the term as used in English referred to the Subcontinent. "Hindustan" was in use simultaneously with "India" during the British Raj. Today, "Hindustan" is no longer in use as the official name for India.
Delhi
There are a number of myths and legends associated with the origin of the name "Delhi". One of them is derived from "Dhillu" or "Dilu", a king who built a city at this location in 50 BCE and named it after himself. Another legend holds that the name of the city is based on the Hindi/Prakrit word "dhili" ("loose") and that it was used by the Tomaras to refer to the city because the iron pillar of Delhi had a weak foundation and had to be moved. The coins in circulation in the region under the Tomaras were called "dehliwal". According to the Bhavishya Purana, King Prithiviraja of Indraprastha built a new fort in the modern-day Purana Qila area for the convenience of all four castes in his kingdom. He ordered the construction of a gateway to the fort and later named the fort "dehali". Some historians believe that the name is derived from "Dilli", a corruption of the Hindustani words "dehleez" or "dehali"—both terms meaning 'threshold' or 'gateway'—and symbolic of the city as a gateway to the Gangetic Plain. Another theory suggests that the city's original name was Dhillika.
Indian subcontinent
According to "Oxford English Dictionary", the term "subcontinent" signifies a "subdivision of a continent which has a distinct geographical, political, or cultural identity" and also a "large land mass somewhat smaller than a continent". It is first attested in 1845 to refer to the North and South Americas, before they were regarded as separate continents. Its use to refer to the Indian subcontinent is seen from the early twentieth century. It was especially convenient for referring to the region comprising both British India and the princely states under British Paramountcy.
Hinduism in India
The Vedic culture developed in India between 1500 BCE and 500 BC. As a consequence, Hinduism, considered to be the successor of Vedic religion, has had a profound impact on India's history, culture and philosophy. The name "India" itself is derived from Greek Ἰνδία for "Indus", which is derived from the Old Persian word "Hindu", from Sanskrit "Sindhu", the historic local appellation for the Indus River. Another popular alternative name of India is "Hindustān", meaning the "land of "Hindus"".
Indian people
Bharat Mata (Hindi, from Sanskrit , "Bhārata Mātā"), "Mother India", or "Bhāratāmbā" (from अंबा "ambā" 'mother') is the national personification of India as a mother goddess.
Indian pitta
The name "pitta" comes from the Telugu word meaning "small bird". Local names in India are based on the colours and their behaviours such as the time of calling and these include Hindi: "Naorang", Punjabi: "Nauranga" (=Nine colours), Bengali: "Shumcha", Cachar: "Dao bui yegashi", Gujarati: "Navaranga" or "Hariyo"; Tamil: "Kaachul", "Aru-mani kuruvi" (=6-O'Clock bird), "Kathelachi", "Thotta kallan"; Telugu: "Polanki pitta", "Ponnangi pitta"; Malayalam: "Kavi"; Kannada: "Navaranga" and Sinhalese: "Avichchiya". The Sinhalese interpretation of its call is that the bird is complaining about the theft of its dress by a peacock: “Evith giya, evith giya, ayith kiyannam, methe budun buduwana vita ayith kiyannam,” which translates as: “Came and went! Came and went! I’ll still be complaining when the next Buddha comes! I’ll still be complaining!”
Devendra
Devendra is a common Indian masculine given name. It comes from Sanskrit "" 'chief of the gods', which has been used as an epithet of the Vedic god Indra as well as the Hindu god Shiva.
Names for India
According to the Puranas, this country is known as Bharatavarsha after Bharata, the son of Rishabha. This has been mentioned in Vishnu Purana (2,1,31), Vayu Purana (33,52), Linga Purana (1,47,23), Brahmanda Purana (14,5,62), Agni Purana (107,11–12), Skanda Purana, Khanda (37,57) and Markandaya Purana (50,41), all using the designation "Bharata Varsha".
French India
The French establishments of India are all located in the Indian peninsula. These establishments are The name 'loge' was given, under the regime of the French East India company, in factories or insulated establishments consisting of a home with an adjacent ground, where France had the right to fly its flag and to form trading posts.In the days of the French East India Company, the title of the top official was most of the time "Gouverneur de Pondichéry et commandant général des établissements français aux Indes orientales". After 1816, it was "Gouverneur des établissements français de l'Inde".
French India became a "territoire d'outre-mer" of France in 1946.French India "de facto" transferred to the Republic of India in 1954.
India, Texas
The first settlement at India, originally called Morgan, was made in 1853. A post office was established under the name India in 1892, and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1904.
Rampersad
"
Rampersad also spelt as Ramprasad or Rampersaud is a surname common in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, the Caribbean, Fiji, South Africa, and Mauritius. It is of Indian and Hindu origin, derived from the Sanskrit words Rama Prasada, and is not affiliated with any certain caste. In India it is used as a first name, but the descendants of the indentured laborers in the European Colonies used their fathers' first name as their surname. The name is common among the Caribbean Hindu community, but as a result of ethnic mixing it is common in Christian, and non-Indian communities as well. Many people of this surname have migrated to the United States and Canada as well. Sundar Popo wrote a song called "Rampersad".
Ramprasad is a common name among Bhojpuri (a Hindi dialect) speaking areas of Bihar and UP states of eastern India. From 1834 to 1917 indentured plantation workers from this region went far and wide including Caribbean, Surinam, Fiji and Mauritius. Dr. Rajendra Prasad the first President of independent India was from the same region (eastern part of Bihar). 
Prasad in Sanskrit means gift from god (generally food). There has been a long practice of having a second name, in general, in northern India. For instance Bihari, Kumar, Chandra and Prasad. These are not family names, it's just that the name is in two parts. A person called Ras Bihari may name his son Gokul Prasad etc. Many a times the two words are written as one for example Ramchandra or Krishnakant. 
Although Sanskrit word is pronounced as Prasad, in Bhojpuri the pronunciation changes to Parsad or Persad.
Dutch East Indies
The word "Indies" comes from (Names for India). The original name "Dutch Indies" () was translated by the English as the "Dutch East Indies", to keep it distinct from the "Dutch West Indies". The name "Dutch Indies" is recorded in the Dutch East India Company's documents of the early 1620s.
India Gate
The cornice of the India Gate is inscribed with the Imperial suns while both sides of the arch have INDIA, flanked by the dates MCMXIV (1914 left) and MCMXIX (1919 right). Below the word INDIA, in capital letters, is inscribed:
13,218 war dead are commemorated by name on the India Gate. Due to security reasons access to read the names on the memorial is restricted. The names can be however be seen on the Delhi Memorial (India Gate website, which lists the names with date of death, unit, regiment, place on gate where name is inscribed, location, and other information). The names on the gate include that of a female staff nurse from the Territorial Force, killed in action in 1917.
Hindus
The word "Hindu" is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word "Sindhu", which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". It was used as the name of the Indus river and also referred to its tributaries. The actual term " first occurs, states Gavin Flood, as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: "Sindhu")", more specifically in the 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I. The Punjab region, called Sapta Sindhu in the Vedas, is called "Hapta Hindu" in Zend Avesta. The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions the province of "Hi[n]dush", referring to northwestern India. The people of India were referred to as "Hinduvān" (Hindus) and "hindavī" was used as the adjective for Indian in the 8th century text "Chachnama". The term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term and did not refer to a religion. The Arabic equivalent "Al-Hind" likewise referred to the country of India.
British Raj
The British Raj (; from "rāj", literally, "rule" in Hindustani) was the rule by the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called British India or simply India in contemporaneous usage, and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and those ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British tutelage or paramountcy, and called the princely states. The whole was also informally called the Indian Empire.
As India, it was a of the League of Nations, a participating nation in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936, and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945.
Indochina
The origins of the name Indo-China are usually attributed jointly to the Danish-French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, who referred to the area as in 1804, and the Scottish linguist John Leyden, who used the term "Indo-Chinese" to describe the area's inhabitants and their languages in 1808. Scholarly opinions at the time regarding China's and India's historical influence over the area were conflicting, and the term was itself controversial—Malte-Brun himself later argued against its use in a later edition of his "Universal Geography", reasoning that it over-emphasized Chinese influence, and suggested "Chin-India" instead. Nevertheless, "Indo-China" had already gained traction and soon supplanted alternative terms such as "Further India" and the "Peninsula beyond the Ganges". Later, however, as the French established the colony of French Indochina, use of the term became more restricted to the French colony, and today the area is usually referred to as Mainland Southeast Asia.
John Frederick Adolphus McNair
Sir Andrew Clarke started the title "Empress of India," and asked Major McNair to translate this. Of the several versions he provided, "Kaisar-i-Hind" was selected and officially used for the first time in Sir Andrew's proclamation, which was at once sent home to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Earl of Carnavon.
Indus River
Megasthenes' book "Indica" derives its name from the river's Greek name, "Indós" ("Ἰνδός"), and describes Nearchus's contemporaneous account of how Alexander the Great crossed the river. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians (people of present-day northwest India and Pakistan) as "Indói" ("Ἰνδοί"), literally meaning "the people of the Indus".
Indonesia–United Kingdom relations
The British and the Dutch signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 which defined the boundary of British and Dutch realms in Southeast Asia and India. The boundaries were later inherited by modern Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. The name "Indonesia" was first coined in 1850, when George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms "Indunesians" — and, his preference, "Malayunesians" — for the inhabitants of the "Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago". In the same publication, a student of Earl's, James Richardson Logan, used "Indonesia" as a synonym for the "Indian Archipelago".
Ramanathan
Ramanathan () is a South Indian male given name. Due to the South Indian tradition of using patronymic surnames it may also be a surname for males and females. Ramanathan is derived from Rama (a Hindu god) and the Sanskrit word "nath", meaning "lord." The name Ramanathan is given to the Hindu god Shiva at Rameshwaram, one of the southernmost towns in India. Hindus believe that Lord Rama worshipped Shiva before beginning his journey to Lanka; hence "Lord of Rama". This name is from the history of great epics. Most Tamil south Indians like chettiars mostly have this name.
Hindus
The historical meaning of the term "Hindu" has evolved with time. Starting with the Persian and Greek references to the land of the Indus in the 1st millennium BCE through the texts of the medieval era, the term Hindu implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent around or beyond the Sindhu (Indus) river. By the 16th century, the term began to refer to residents of the subcontinent who were not Turkic or Muslims.
Upendra
Upendra (Devanagari: उपेन्द्र) is an Indian masculine given name. The meaning of the Sanskrit word "" is "younger brother of Indra" and refers to either Krishna or Vishnu, who as a son of Aditi (or in the before Vamana avatar) was born subsequently to Indra.
Outline of ancient India
Ancient India is the Indian Subcontinent from prehistoric times to the start of Medieval India, which is typically dated (when the term is still used) to the end of the Gupta Empire. Ancient India was composed of modern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan (some portions), Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and even Burma.
Hindustan Zindabad
The word "Hindustan" generally refers to the Republic of India since 1947. It is conventionally believed to be derived from the Old Persian word "Hindu", which in turn is derived from "Sindhu", the Sanskrit name for the Indus River. Old Persian refers to the people living beyond the Indus as "Hinduš". This combined with the Avestan suffix "-stān" (cognate to Sanskrit "sthān", both meaning "place") results in "Hindustan", as the land on the other side (from Persia) of the Indus.
Gondwana (India)
Gondwana is a region of India, named after the Gondi people who live there (though they can also be found in other parts of India). The name of the ancient continent of Gondwanaland was derived from Gondwana, because some of the earliest rock formations of this continent were first investigated in part of the region, in modern Odisha.
Hindustan
Historian B. N. Mukherjee states that from the lower Indus basin, the term "Hindūstān" got gradually extended to "more or less the whole of the subcontinent". The Greco-Roman name "India" and the Chinese name "Shen-tu" also followed a similar evolution.
History of the Indian Navy
When India became a republic on 26 January 1950, the name was changed to the Indian Navy, and the vessels were redesignated as Indian Naval Ships (INS).
Native American name controversy
Columbus carried a passport in Latin from the Spanish monarchs that dispatched him "ad partes Indie" ("toward the regions of India") on their behalf. When he landed in the Antilles, Columbus referred to the resident peoples he encountered there as "Indians" reflecting his purported belief that he had reached the Indian Ocean. The name stuck; for centuries the native people of the Americas were collectively called "Indians" in various European languages. This misnomer was perpetuated in place naming; the islands of the Caribbean were named, and are still known as, the West Indies.
Hindi
The term "Hindī" originally was used to refer to inhabitants of the region east of the Indus. It was borrowed from Classical Persian "Hindī" (Iranian Persian "Hendi"), meaning "Indian", from the proper noun "Hind" "India".
Unni (Indian name)
Unni is used as a first name in Kerala, India. In the Malayalam language, it is also used as an adjective meaning an infant boy. Thus, Unnikrishnan or Unnikannan means Lord Krishna in the infant form and Unniyesu means Yesu (Jesus in Malayalam) in the infant form. The word is also the name of a caste among Hindus in the Southern India State of Kerala.
History of India
The Vedic period is named after the Indo-Aryan culture of north-west India, although other parts of India had a distinct cultural identity during this period. The Vedic culture is described in the texts of Vedas, still sacred to Hindus, which were orally composed in Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedas are some of the oldest extant texts in India. The Vedic period, lasting from about 1500 to 500 BCE, contributed the foundations of several cultural aspects of the Indian subcontinent. In terms of culture, many regions of the Indian subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age in this period.
Lansdowne, India
Kanvashram, a well-known landmark is situated 14 km from Kotdwar railway station. Shakuntala, wife of King Dushyanta and deserted by him, is said to have given birth to Bharata in the Ashram of Rishi Kanva in ancient India. India got its name 'Bharat' in Sanskrit after Bharata became king following the death of his father.
Names for India
Although "the Aryavarta" was eventually accepted as a term for all of India, previously it was only a name of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. According to Manusmṛti North India (i.e., India north of the Vindhyas) is also known as (Sanskrit: , abode of the Vedic people).
Indochina
Indochina, originally Indo-China, is a geographical term originating in the early nineteenth century and referring to the continental portion of the region now known as Southeast Asia. The name refers to the lands historically within the cultural influence of India and China, and physically bound by the Indian Subcontinent in the west and China in the north. It corresponds to the present-day areas of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and (variably) peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. The term was later adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina (today's Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos), and the entire area of Indochina is now usually referred to as the Indochinese Peninsula or Mainland Southeast Asia.
Names for India
The English term is from Greek Indika (cf. Megasthenes' work Indica) or (), via Latin transliteration .
Hinduism
Thapar states that the word "Hindu" is found as "heptahindu" in Avesta – equivalent to Rigvedic "sapta sindhu", while "hndstn" (pronounced "Hindustan") is found in a Sasanian inscription from the 3rd century CE, both of which refer to parts of northwestern South Asia. The Arabic term "al-Hind" referred to the people who live across the River Indus. This Arabic term was itself taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term "Hindū", which refers to all Indians. By the 13th century, "Hindustan" emerged as a popular alternative name of India, meaning the "land of Hindus".
Singh
Singh (: ) is a title, middle name, or surname which originated in India. The word Singh means lion from the Sanskrit, the name is used as a surname to represent males and not females (except females of Rajput warrior clan), it has been used as a word meant to represent the lion, it was initially used as a last/middle name by Rajput warriors in India, and later on mandated in the 18th century by Guru Gobind Singh for all Sikhs and also adopted several castes and communities as a surname or a middle name, it is now found throughout India and among the Indian diaspora, cutting across communities and religious groups, becoming more of a title than a surname. It is one of most common surnames, and the most common surname in India, shared by 36 million people.
Names for India
Tianzhu or Tenjiku () (originally pronounced xien-t'juk) is the historical East Asian name for India that comes from the Chinese transliteration of the Persian "Hindu", which itself is derived from the Sanskrit "Sindhu", the native name of the Indus River. "Tianzhu" is one of several Chinese transliterations of Sindhu. "Juandu" () appears in Sima Qian's Shiji and "Tiandu" () is used in the Hou Hanshu (Book of the Later Han). "Yintejia" () comes from the Kuchean "Indaka", another transliteration of "Hindu". A detailed account of Tianzhu is given in the "Xiyu Zhuan" (Record of the Western Regions) in the "Hou Hanshu" compiled by Fan Ye (398–445):
Names for India
Writers throughout history, both Indian and of other nationalities have written about a 'Greater India', which Indians have called either Akhand Bharat or Mahabharata.
Kaisar-i-Hind Medal
The medal was instituted by Queen Victoria on 10 April 1900. The name translates as "Emperor of India" (a name also used for a rare Indian butterfly, "Teinopalpus imperialis"). The Royal Warrant for the Kaisar-i-Hind was amended in 1901, 1912, 1933 and 1939. While never officially rescinded, the Kaisar-i-Hind ceased to be awarded following the passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947. The awards of the gold medal were often published in the "London Gazette", while other classes were published in the "Gazette of India".
Renaming of cities in India
In the post-colonial era, several Indian states' names were changed. Some of these changes coincided with the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, a major reform of the boundaries of India's states and territories that organised them along linguistic lines. At this time, for example, Travancore-Cochin was renamed Kerala. Later state name changes include the reorganisation of Madhya Bharat into Madhya Pradesh in 1959; and the renamings of the Madras State to Tamil Nadu in 1969, of the Mysore State to Karnataka in 1973, and of Uttaranchal to Uttarakhand in 2007.
History of Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand, India. Literally "Northern Land" or "Section" in Sanskrit, the name of Uttarakhand finds mention in the early Hindu scriptures as the combined region of Kedarkhand and Manaskhand.
Rajpath
Following the independence of India the road was bequeathed with its Hindi name, 'Rajpath', in place of its English designation. However, it should be noted that this represents a mere translation more than a substantial renaming, since 'Rajpath' in Hindi is broadly analogous in meaning to 'King's Way'.
Indian people
The "history of India" includes the prehistoric settlements and societies in the Indian subcontinent; the blending of the Indus Valley Civilization and Indo-Aryan culture into the Vedic Civilization; the development of Hinduism as a synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions; rise of sixteen oligarchic republics known as Mahajanapadas; rise of Śramaṇa movement; birth of Jainism and Buddhism in 6th-century BCE, and the onset of a succession of powerful dynasties and empires for more than two millennia throughout various geographic areas of the subcontinent, including the growth of Muslim dynasties during the Medieval period intertwined with Hindu powers; the advent of European traders resulting in the establishment of the British rule; and the subsequent independence movement that led to the Partition of India and the creation of the Republic of India.
Sachin (given name)
The name Sachin is derived, via Indic languages like Bengali and Marathi, from the Sanskrit name Shachindra. Shachindra is a name given to Hindu mythological god Indra which means Shachi's Indra. Shachi was one of the wives of Indra. It is also a name of Hindu god Shiva. The literal meaning can be roughly translated into English as "the essence".
All India
All India is a phrase used to refer to all the states and regions of India together, particularly prior to the independence of India. During the period, "All India" essentially included what are now separate nations such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, following the Partition of India. The legacy continued for many years after the independence.
Cultural depictions of lions
Singh is an ancient Indian vedic name meaning "lion", dating more than 2,000 years ago to ancient India. It was originally only used by Rajputs, a Hindu Kshatriya or military caste in India. After the birth of the Khalsa brotherhood in 1699, the Sikhs also adopted the name "Singh" due to the wishes of Guru Gobind Singh. Along with millions of Hindu Rajputs and numerous other Hindu martial groups today, it is also used by more than 20 million Sikhs worldwide. The appellation of the name Singh was used by the Rajputs before being adopted by the Sikhs in 1699. Therefore, all "Singh"s in Indian history before 1699 are Hindu and mainly Rajputs. The lion also features as the carrier or the vehicle of Durga, the Hindu goddess of war, worshipped in and around the Bengal region.
Santhagara
Santhagara "commonly known as Santhwar" is a pali word derived from combination of Santha or Sanstha in Sanskrit (group) and Agara (house or assembly point) and was used for the general assembly hall of a particular Gaṇa sangha solar dynasty kshatriya clan of ancient northern India where the old and younger of the same clan meets to decide on the general and state affairs. Santhagara was associated with republican states and its history traces back to 600 B.C. The republican states were known as Gana or Sangha. Buddhist literatures show that Santhagara of republic states used to control foreign affairs, entertaining foreign Ambassadors and princes, and deciding on peace and war proposals. The history of democracy in India is believed to be starting from Santhagara and India derives its official name Bharat Ganarajya, the Republic of India, from the Gana.
Indian Indonesians
Various people from the Indian subcontinent have frequented the Indonesian archipelago since the prehistoric era. In Bali, for example, remains of pottery from the first centuries C.E. have been recovered. In fact, the name Indonesia itself comes from the Latin "Indus" ("India") and Greek "nêsos" ("island"), which literally means the "Indian archipelago".
Names for India
The Republic of India has two principal short names in both official and popular English usage, each of which is historically significant, "India" and "Bharat". The first article of the Constitution of India states that "India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states," implicitly codifying "India" and "Bharat" as equally official short names for the Republic of India. A third name, "Hindustan", is an alternative name for the region comprising most of the modern nations of the subcontinent when Indians speak among themselves. The usage of "Bharat", "Hindustan", or "India" depends on the context and language of conversation.
Names for India
By the time of Alexander, in Koine Greek denoted the region beyond the Indus. Alexander's companions were aware of at least North India up to the Ganges delta (Gangaridai). Later, Megasthenes included in India the southern peninsula as well.
List of country-name etymologies
The name literally means "Land of the Pure" in Urdu and Persian. It was coined in 1933 as "Pakstan" by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan Movement activist, who published it in his pamphlet "Now or Never", using it as an acronym ("thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTAN") referring to the names of the five northwestern regions of the Indian Empire: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan". The letter "i" was incorporated to ease pronunciation and form the linguistically correct and meaningful name.
Names for India
Emperor Babur said, "On the East, the South, and the West it is bounded by the Great Ocean." 
"Hind" was notably adapted in the Arabic language as the definitive form () for India, e.g. in the 11th century "Tarikh Al-Hind" ('History of India'). It occurs intermittently in usage within India, such as in the phrase () or in (), the Standard Hindi name for the Indian Ocean, but otherwise is deemed archaic.
India Catalina
The name of Catalina India appeared in a letter sent for Pedro de Heredia to King Carlos V in 1533. No one knew what her real name was because he began calling her 'Catalina' from 1509 when the Diego de Nicuesa expedition kidnapped and took her to Santo Domingo where was educated as a Spaniard. From that time she would use Spanish dress only but was still considered a slave.
Solangi Kharal
"The Priest King Wearing Sindhi Ajruk", c. 2500 BC, in the National Museum of Pakistan.
The region is named after the river Sindhu(Indus). The people living in the region are referred to as Sindhi. The terms Hindi and Hindu are derived from the word Sindh and Sindhu, as the ancient Persians pronounced "s" as "h" (e.g., sarasvati as harahvati). In the same way, Persians called the people of this region as Hindhi people, their language as Hindhi language and the region as Hindh, the name which is used for this region since ancient times, and later for the whole northern part of the Indian sub-continent today.
History of Hindustani
The term "Hindustani" is derived from Hindustan, the Persian-origin name for the northwestern subcontinent. The term "Ordu," or "camp language" (cognate with the English word, "horde"), was used to describe the common language of the Mughal army. The works of the 13th century scholar Amir Khusro are typical of the Hindustani language of the time:The language went by several names over the years: "Hindavi" ("of Hindus or Indians"), "Dahlavi" ("of Delhi"), "Hindustani" ("of Hindustan") and "Hindi" ("Indian"). The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built a new walled city in Delhi in 1639 that came to be known as Shahjahanabad. The market close to the royal fort (the Red Fort) was called "Urdu Bazar" ("Army/camp Market", from the Turkic word "ordu", "army"), and it may be from this that the phrase "Zaban-e-Urdu" ("the language of the army/camp") derives. This was shortened to "Urdu" around the year 1800. The language spread from the interaction of Persian-speaking Muslim soldiers to the local people who spoke varieties of Hindi. Soon, the Persian script in the cursive Nasta'liq form was adopted, with additional letters to accommodate the Indian phonetic system. Large number of Persian words were adopted, as were even grammatical elements such as the enclitic "ezāfe".
Hindostan (East Indiaman)
Three East Indiamen of the East India Company (EIC), have borne the name "Hindostan", after the old name for the Indian subcontinent:
Names for India
"Bhārät", the name for India in several Indian languages, is variously said to be derived from the name of Dushyanta's son Bharata or Rishabha's son Bharata. At first the name Bharata referred only to the western part of the Gangetic Valley in North India, but was later more broadly applied to the Indian subcontinent and the region of Greater India, as was the name "India". Today it refers to the contemporary Republic of India located therein. The name "India" is originally derived from the name of the river Sindhu (Indus River) and has been in use in Greek since Herodotus (4th century BCE). The term appeared in Old English as early the 9th century and reemerged in Modern English in the 17th century.
Hindustan
With the Turko-Persian conquests starting in the 11th century, a narrower meaning of "Hindustan" also took shape. The conqueres were liable to call the lands under their control as ""Hindustan"" ignoring the rest of the subcontinent.
In the early 11th century a satellite state of the Ghaznavids in the Punjab with its capital at Lahore was called "Hindustan". After the Delhi Sultanate was established, north India, especially the Gangetic plains, came to be called "Hindustan".
Scholar Bratindra Nath Mukherjee states that this narrow menaing of "Hindustan" existed side by side with the wider meaning, and some of the authors used both of them simultaneously.
India
The geographical term "Bharat" (; ), which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. It is a modernisation of the historical name "Bharatavarsha", which traditionally referred to the Indian subcontinent and gained increasing currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India.
Turkey (bird)
Other countries have other names for turkeys. Many of these names incorporate an assumed Indian origin, such as "diik Hindi" ("Indian rooster") in Arabian countries, "dinde" ("from India") in French, индюшка ("indyushka") ("bird of India") in Russia, "indyk" in Poland, and "Hindi" ("India") in Turkey. These are thought to arise from the supposed belief of Christopher Columbus that he had reached India rather than the Americas on his voyage. In Portuguese a turkey is a "peru"; the name is thought to derive from the eponymous country Perú.
India
The name "India" is derived from "Indus", which originates from the Old Persian word "Hindush", equivalent to the Sanskrit word "Sindhu", which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as "Indoi" (""), which translates as "The people of the Indus".
Hindustan
The Mughal Empire (1526–1857) called its lands 'Hindustan'. The term 'Mughal' itself was never used to refer to the land. As the empire expanded, so too did 'Hindustan'. At the same time, the meaning of 'Hindustan' as the entire Indian subcontinent is also found in "Baburnama" and "Ain-i-Akbari".
Names for India
Some historical definitions prior to 1500 are presented below.
History of Indiana
Formal use of the word "Indiana" dates from 1768, when a Philadelphia-based trading company gave their land claim in the present-day state of West Virginia the name of Indiana in honor of its previous owners, the Iroquois. Later, ownership of the claim was transferred to the Indiana Land Company, the first recorded use of the word "Indiana". However, the Virginia colony argued that it was the rightful owner of the land because it fell within its geographic boundaries. The U.S. Supreme Court extinguished the land company's right to the claim in 1798.
Indira (name)
Indira is a Hindu/Sanskrit Indian popular feminine given name, which means "beauty" and "splendid".
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is named after India.
Called the Sindhu Mahasagara or the great sea of the Sindhu by the Ancient Indians, this ocean has been variously called Hindu Ocean, Indic Ocean, etc. in various languages. The Indian Ocean was also known earlier as the Eastern Ocean. The term was still in use during the mid-18th century.
Portuguese India
The State of India (), also referred as the Portuguese State of India ("Estado Português da Índia", EPI) or simply Portuguese India ("Índia Portuguesa"), was a state of the Portuguese Overseas Empire, founded six years after the discovery of a sea route between Portugal and the Indian Subcontinent to serve as the governing body of a string of Portuguese fortresses and colonies overseas.
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) or the British East India Company and informally as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company, was an English and later British joint-stock company. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with Mughal India and the East Indies (Maritime Southeast Asia), and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control over large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia, and colonised Hong Kong after a war with Qing China.
Mumbai
By the late 20th century, the city was referred to as "Mumbai" or "Mambai" in Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Kannada and Sindhi, and as "Bambai" in Hindi. The Government of India officially changed the English name to "Mumbai" in November 1995. This came at the insistence of the Marathi nationalist Shiv Sena party, which had just won the Maharashtra state elections, and mirrored similar name changes across the country and particularly in Maharashtra. According to "Slate" magazine, "they argued that 'Bombay' was a corrupted English version of 'Mumbai' and an unwanted legacy of British colonial rule." "Slate" also said "The push to rename Bombay was part of a larger movement to strengthen Marathi identity in the Maharashtra region." While the city is still referred to as Bombay by some of its residents and by Indians from other regions, mention of the city by a name other than "Mumbai" has been controversial, resulting in emotional outbursts sometimes of a violently political nature.
Indonesia
The name "Indonesia" derives from the Greek name of the "Indos" (Ἰνδός) and the word "nesos" (νῆσος), meaning "Indian islands". The name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms "Indunesians"—and, his preference, "Malayunesians"—for the inhabitants of the "Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago". In the same publication, one of his students, James Richardson Logan, used "Indonesia" as a synonym for "Indian Archipelago". However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use "Indonesia"; they preferred "Malay Archipelago" ("Maleische Archipel"); the "Netherlands East Indies" ("Nederlandsch Oost Indië"), popularly "Indië"; "the East" ("de Oost"); and "Insulinde".
Mohannad
Muhannad () is a masculine Arabic name meaning “sword made in India”. It is derived from the word for India ("Al Hind" الهند) and can mean both "India-ified" or "Indian". The iron used for it came from India.
Ramender
Ramender is a name of Indian origin. It is sometimes spelt as Ramendra or as Raminder. This word is composed of two words joined together using the rules of Hindi or Sanskrit grammar. The combination goes like ...
Hindus
Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text "Record of the Western Regions" by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang. Xuanzang uses the transliterated term "In-tu" whose "connotation overflows in the religious" according to Arvind Sharma. While Xuanzang suggested that the term refers to the country named after the moon, another Buddhist scholar I-tsing contradicted the conclusion saying that "In-tu" was not a common name for the country.
Indian people
The name "Bhārata" has been used as a self-ascribed name by people of the Indian subcontinent and the Republic of India. The designation "Bhārata" appears in the official Sanskrit name of the country, "Bhārata Gaṇarājya". The name is derived from the ancient Jain and Hindu puranas, which refer to the land that comprises India as "Bhārata varṣam" and uses this term to distinguish it from other "varṣa"s or continents. India was named "Bhāratavarsha" or "Bhārata" or "Bharata-bhumi" after Bharata Chakravartin, the son of first Jain Tirthankar Rishabhanatha. In the Hindu text, Skanda Purana (chapter 37) it is stated that "Rishabhanatha was the son of Nabhiraja, and Rishabha had a son named Bharata, and after the name of this Bharata, this country is known as Bharata-varsha." This has been mentioned in Vishnu Purana (2,1,31), Vayu Purana,(33,52), Linga Purana(1,47,23), Brahmanda Purana (14,5,62), Agni Purana ( 107,11–12), Skanda Purana, Khanda (37,57) and Markandeya Purana (50,41) it is clearly stated that this country is known as Bharata Varsha.
History of India
The history of India includes the prehistoric settlements and societies in the Indian subcontinent; the Indus Valley Civilisation; the eventual blending of the Indo-Aryan culture to form the Vedic Civilisation; the rise of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism; the onset of a succession of powerful dynasties and empires for more than three millennia throughout various geographic areas of the Indian subcontinent, including the growth of Muslim dominions during the Medieval period intertwined with Hindu powers; the advent of European traders and privateers, resulting in the establishment of British India; and the subsequent independence movement that led to the Partition of India and the creation of the Republic of India.
Raghavan
Raghavan (Tamil: ராகவன்; Malayalam: രാഘവന്‍) is a South Indian name. It derives from the Sanskrit "raghava", meaning "derived from Raghu" or "descendant of Raghu" (an epithet of the Hindu god Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu), plus the Tamil-Malayalam third-person masculine singular suffix -n. Although it is used as a given name in India it has also come to be used as a family name in the United States.
Indus River
The word "India" is derived from the Indus River. In ancient times, "India" initially referred to those regions immediately along the east bank of the Indus, but by 300 BC, Greek writers including Herodotus and Megasthenes were applying the term to the entire subcontinent that extends much farther eastward.
Keling
The word "Keling" derives from the ancient Indian kingdom of Kalinga. While this was apparently sometimes localized as "Kalingga" (as in the Indonesian Kalingga Kingdom), the terminal schwa sound was dropped in common usage to form Keling. Though ostensibly denoting the Kalinga kingdom, the term Keling in ancient Southeast Asia came to be a more general term for India and its people. The Khmer word Kleng (ក្លិង្គ) and the Thai word "Khaek" (แขก) derived from the same root. Prior to the introduction of the English word "India", Keling and Jambu Dwipa were used to refer to the country in the Malay and Indonesian language, while "Benua Keling" referred to the Indian Subcontinent.
Hindush
It is widely accepted that the name derives from , the Sanskrit name of the Indus river as well as the region at the lower Indus basin (modern Sindh). The Proto-Iranian sound change "*s" > "h" occurred between 850–600 BCE, according to Asko Parpola. The "-sh" suffix is common among the names of many Achaemenid provinces, such as (the land of "Harauvati" or "Haraxvaiti", i.e., Arachosia) or (Bactria). Accordingly, would mean the land of .
Names for India
The name derives ultimately from Sanskrit (), which was the name of the Indus River as well as the country at the lower Indus basin (modern Sindh, in Pakistan). The Old Persian equivalent of was . Darius I conquered Sindh in about 516 BCE, upon which the Persian equivalent was used for the province at the lower Indus basin. Skylax of Karyanda who explored the Indus river for the Persian emperor probably took over the Persian name and passed it into Greek. The terms () for the Indus river as well as "an Indian" are found in Herodotus's Geography. The loss of the aspirate /h/ was probably due to the dialects of Greek spoken in Asia Minor. Herodotus also generalised the term "Indian" from the people of lower Indus basin, to all the people living to the east of Persia, even though he had no knowledge of the geography of the land.
List of Indian state and union territory name etymologies
The Republic of India was constituted in 1947 as a union of states. After the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, there was a rearrangement of state boundaries along linguistic lines, many states were given names in their own languages. Many states are named due to their geographical characteristics, peculiar history or populations and colonial influences.
India
Geography
Ahrar-ul-Hind
The group's name literally means "freedom fighters of India" (referring to the Indian subcontinent as a whole). According to a commander of a Taliban group, the group derived its name of “Ahrar” from Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam, because the Ahraris were against the formation of Pakistan, and they believed that the entire subcontinent was their homeland. The commander said that the group planned to expand their operations to the remaining part of the subcontinent.
Council of India
The Council of India was the name given at different times to two separate bodies associated with British rule in India.
Hindu Kush
The origins of the name "Hindu Kush" are uncertain, with various theories being propounded by different scholars and writers. According to "Hobson-Jobson", the name might be a possible corruption of "Indicus Caucasus", with another explanation mentioned first by Ibn Batuta remaining popular despite doubts upon it, and the modification of the name by some later writers into Hindu "Koh" is factitious and throws no light on the name's origin.
In the time of Alexander the Great, the Hindu Kush range was referred to as the "Caucasus Indicus" or the "Caucasus of the Indus River" (as opposed to the Greater Caucasus range between the Caspian and Black Seas), and in the time of Islam in India, the regular invasions possibly derived Hind Kash as "Hindu Kush" "Hindū Kūh" () and "Kūh-e Hind" () usually applied to the entire range separating the basins of the Kabul and Helmand Rivers from that of the Amu Darya, or, more specifically, to that part of the range lying northwest of Kabul. Sanskrit documents refer to the Hindu Kush as Hind kshetra in short Hind Kash as frontier lands of India. "Kash as in Kashmir (pronounced as कश in Hindi, in English written as Kush)" word also synonym of frontier part of a "Kusha" grass. Hind Kash all around from Amu Darya (in Vedic Sanskrit Vakṣu (वक्षु) river) to Kashmir was Kshetra (place) for meditation and teaching by founders of Hinduism.
Hindustan
Hindustan () is the Persian name for India, broadly the Indian subcontinent, which later became an endonym.
After the Partition of India, it continues to be used as a historic name for the Republic of India.
India
"Hindustan" () is a Middle Persian name for India. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then. Its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety. Currently, the name may refer to either the northern part of India or the entire country.
Names for India
Hodu ( "Hoddû") is the Biblical Hebrew name for India mentioned in the Book of Esther part of the Jewish Tanakh (Bible) and Christian Old Testament. In Esther 1:1, Ahasuerus (Xerxes) had been described as King ruling 127 provinces from "Hodu" (India) to "Ethiopia".
India (cat)
There was some controversy reported in India as some people were upset with the cat's name. In July 2004, demonstrators in the southern Keralian city of Thiruvananthapuram denounced the cat's name as an insult to the nation of India, and burned an effigy of President Bush in protest. The Bushes did not change the cat's name in response to the demonstrations, as their cat had been named after the baseball player Rubén Sierra, who was nicknamed "El Indio" during his time with the Texas Rangers when Bush owned the team. The name "India" had reportedly been given to the family cat by their daughter Barbara Bush.
Native American name controversy
In Canada, while Status Indian remains a legal designation due to the Indian Act, the term "Indian" is generally considered offensive when used by non-Natives with the term First Nations being preferred for peoples covered by the Indian Act and Indigenous peoples preferred for Native peoples generally or when talking about Inuit and Métis who do not fall under the "First Nations" category.Europeans at the time of Christopher Columbus's voyage often referred to all of South and East Asia as "India" or "the Indias/Indies", sometimes dividing the area into "Greater India", "Middle India", and "Lesser India". The oldest surviving terrestrial globe, by Martin Behaim in 1492 (before Columbus' voyage), labels the entire Asian subcontinent region as "India".
Pauri Garhwal district
According to legend, this is the place where the great sage Swami Vishvamitra meditated and Indra, fearing Vishwamitra's intense meditation, sent a charming heavenly damsel Menaka to distract him. Menaka succeeded in seducing, and thus distracting, the sage. A daughter named Shakuntala was born as the fruit of their union. She was then left in the ashram, in the care of Rishi Kanva. Shakuntala later, upon marriage with Dushyant, the ruler of Hastinapur, gave birth to prince Bharat. It is by virtue of this name - Bharat - that India came to be called Bharatvarsha and thus Bharat.
India (Herodotus)
In ancient Greek geography, the basin of the Indus River (essentially corresponding to the territory of modern Pakistan) was on the extreme eastern fringe of the known world.
The Greek geographer Herodotus (5th century BC) describes India, calling it (Roman transliteration: "hē Hindikē chōrē", meaning "the Indian land"), after "Hinduš", the Old Persian name of the Indus river and the associated satrapy of Sindh in the Achaemenid Empire. Darius the Great had conquered this territory in 516 BC. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor (western Turkey) were already part of the Achaemenid Empre since 546 BC and, thus, the Greeks and Indians came into contact with each other as subjects of the Empire.
Greece–India relations
For the Ancient Greeks "India" () meant only the upper Indus till the time of Alexander the Great. After "India" meant to the Greeks most of the northern half of the Indian subcontinent. The Greeks referred to the Indians as "Indói" (), literally meaning "the people of the Indus River". Indians called the Greeks Yonas or “Yavanas” from Ionians.
Bharata Chakravartin
Bharata was the first "chakravartin" (universal emperor or possessor of "chakra") of "avasarpini" (present half time cycle as per Jain cosmology). He was the eldest son of Rishabhanatha, the first "Tirthankara" of Jainism. According to the Jains and the Hindu Puranas, the ancient name of India was named "Bhāratavarsha" or "Bhārata" or "Bharata-bhumi" after him. He had two sons from his chief Queen Sunanda - Arkakirti (also known as Surya) and Marichi. He conquered all the six parts of the world and fought with Bahubali (his brother) in the end to conquer the last remaining city.
Names for India
The realm of Bharata is known as "Bharātavarṣa" in the "Mahabhārata" (the core portion of which is itself known as "Bhārata") and later texts. According to the text, the term "Bharata" is from the king Bharata, who was the son of Dushyanta and Shakuntala and the term "varsa" means a division of the earth or a continent.
Uttarapatha
Later, Dakshinapatha was also the name lent to the region of India lying to the south of Vindya through which the Dakshinapatha passed. The name Deccan for the southern part of India has originated from this ancient Dakshinapatha. The philosophies of the easterners were disseminated precisely by the intercourse that went on along the "Uttarapatha" and the "Dakishinapatha" trade routes.
History of Bengal
Storytellers linked Bengal's name to the Generations of Noah. According to the tale, Bengal (Bong) is the son of Hind (India), who in turn is the son of Ham (Egypt), who in turn is the son of Noah.
An interesting theory of the origin of the name is provided by "Abu'l-Fazl" in his "Ain-i-Akbari". According to him, "[T]he original name of Bengal was Bung, and the suffix ""al"" came to be added to it from the fact that the ancient rajahs of this land raised mounds of earth 10 feet high and 20 in breadth in lowlands at the foot of the hills which were called "al". From this suffix added to the Bung, the name Bengal arose and gained currency".
India (disambiguation)
The term "India" has historically also been used to refer to: