Sikhs have a given name and one or both of a surname and a Khalsa name. The surname may be a family name (based on the name of the ancestral village) or a caste name. Different castes still exist today in some aspects of Punjabi culture; similarly to the Hindu caste system, this system is based on employment[citation needed] (ex. jatt signifies the farming caste).[citation needed]
On becoming a Khalsa, the Sikh undertakes the obligation to wear the physical symbols of this status (the Five Ks) and takes the name "lion", usually romanized as Singh, if a man, or "the Crown Princess" for female, usually romanized as Kaur, if a woman. (Note that Singh is spelled irregularly: it is written /singh/ but pronounced /siṅg) These names reflect the strong egalitarianism of the Sikh religion. The adopting of the Khalsa name is symbolic for being a member of a larger family or faith. These names were originally intended to replace the Sikh's original surname, which was often a caste name.
Some Sikhs do replace their original surname with their Khalsa name, but many retain their original surname and add the Khalsa name before it. Thus, a man born Sandeep Brar should become Sandeep Singh but more likely will become Sandeep Singh Brar. Similarly, a woman born Harjeet Gill should become Harjeet Kaur or Harjeet Kaur Gill.
Personal names
Sikhs use a set of several hundred given names, all or nearly all meaningful, usually with a religious or moral theme.[citation needed] For example, Ujjal means "bright, clean, holy".[citation needed] The process of choosing a Sikh's first name, known as the Naam Karan, occurs following the first few days of their birth, in a ceremony called the Hukamnama (referring to a hymn from the Guru Granth Sahib as the will from God); a family often selects a name for a child by opening the Sikh holy scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib to a certain "aang" (page) and choosing a name that begins with the first letter of the first word on the "aang".[citation needed]
It is important to note that Sikhs are not religiously bound to take-on culturally Indic personal names, names from any culture are acceptable.[1] Names also do not have to have spiritual meanings behind them.[1] Whatever name chosen for a newborn baby will need to adhere to the rule regarding the first-letter being the same as the one in the vaak, as per the Naam Karan ceremony.[1]
Sikh given names are gender neutral, generally formed of a prefix and a suffix (ex. Har/jeet/).[citation needed] There is however, a gender connotation attached when pronouncing a name, say Parkāśh for example; it may be either male or female, but /parakāśō/ is female while /parakāśū/ is male. [citation needed]
Family names
In Sikhism, women don't change their surnames after marriage - this is due to the fact that each partner keeps Singh and Kaur respectively, who use their preferred names).[citation needed] Again, Punjabi culture generally contradicts this as women are expected to take their husband's family name. Their daughters would then generally have a given name, as well as the Khalsa name and their father's last name, which is usually the name of the father's village; for example, a girl with the name Harjeet, whose father's last name is Aulakh, would then become Harjeet Kaur Aulakh (meaning "Harjeet, princess of Aulakh"). In spite that this system is not permitted for Sikhs as it reinforces both tribalism and the patriarchy, it is the most widely used naming system amongst non-initiated Sikhs (and still prevalent among initiated Sikhs).[citation needed] Sikh girls take on last name of Singh, a practice more common in larger cities. [citation needed]
Many Sikhs use the sole Singh and Kaur (without any other family name). Initiation is not necessary to use these Sikh last names. Some believers maintain that this practice of naming without using the word Singh or Kaur is manmat (Against the will of the Guru) and is prohibited in the Rehat Maryada (The way of living of Sikhs).[2]
Some Sikhs append a toponymic name as a suffix to their name.[1] For example, a Sikh man named Joginder Singh from Amritsar may call himself "Joginder Singh Amritsar".[1] The purpose of this is often to hide or replace a traditional caste-based surname, which some Sikhs are against appending to one's name.[1]
Caste
Many Sikhs append the name of their sub-caste (known as a got in Punjabi and gotra in Hindi) as their surname.[3]: 40–41 A got is an exogamous grouping within a particular caste (known as a zat in Punjabi and jati in Hindi).[3]: 343 A zat is an endogamous caste grouping, which contains gots under it.[3]: 345 Some Sikhs are against the usage of got names as surnames because they think it promotes the caste system and the discrimination that comes from it, which is against Sikh doctrines.[3]: 98 Sikhs tend to marry someone belonging to a different got as themself whilst belonging to the same zat.[3]: 40–41 Since the second-half of the 20th century, some Sikhs from socially and economically-disadvantaged castes have adopted the gotra names of privileged castes as their surnames in an attempt to hide their original caste-background and seek upward social mobility.[4] An example of this practice in-action is a trend of Mazhabis adopting Jat Sikh clan names as their surname in an attempt to seek higher social statues by affiliating themselves with Jats.[5]
^ abcdeBarrier, Norman Gerald; Dusenbery, Verne A., eds. (1989). The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab (1st ed.). South Asia Books. ISBN9788170010470.
^Ram, Ronki (2023-03-01). "Understanding Diversity and Deras within the Sikh Panth (Community): Some Critical Reflections. | Journal of Sikh & Punjab Studies | EBSCOhost". openurl.ebsco.com. p. 151. Retrieved 2024-09-29. In the latter half of the twentieth century another practice of hiding caste under the cover of adopted gotras (clan surnames) of the dominant/upper castes, especially among the lower castes, became quite popular. Gotras like 'Atwal', 'Gill', 'Sandhu', and 'Sidhu' are often being adopted by many 'ex-untouchables' in their desperate attempts towards upward social mobility.
^Pettigrew, Joyce (Mar 31, 2023). "The Jats and Their Relationship to non-Jats". Robber Noblemen: A study of the political system of the Sikh Jats. Taylor & Francis. ISBN9781000858518.
