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In south Indian names: > Initials are often used to shorten the name. A fun complication to this is that the initial may be more than one letter in English, t
by chrismorgan 3y ago
In south Indian names:
> Initials are often used to shorten the name.
A fun complication to this is that the initial may be more than one letter in English, taking the first consonant as it is in the source language (which uses an alphasyllabary), which may correspond to more than one letter in the Latin script; for example, “Ch. Naveen”.
- navigate8310 3y agoInitials also include Sh. which means Shriman or Shri for males and Smt. which mean Shrimati
- unmole 3y agoThey aren't initials and shouldn't be used as such.
- chrismorgan 3y agoThat seems more like an abbreviation, like English titles such as “Mr.” and “Mrs.”?
- fuzztester 3y agoYes.
- SanjayMehta 3y ago“Ch.” could be short for “Choudhary,” a title. Or for “Chiranjeevi,” usually used on wedding cards before the groom’s name.
- chrismorgan 3y agoI know a couple of people in Hyderabad where it’s definitely family name. But yeah, the mixture of initials and abbreviations of titles and such can readily become difficult to penetrate.
- martyvis 3y agoIn early 20th century Australia some common names were abbreviated rather than initialled, often seen on business names. For instance George was Geo. and Charles was Chas.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoI've only ever heard of this in the context of some Roman Latin inscriptions on grave markers. If I'm not mistaken, some of those can't be interpreted at all because they're ambiguous.
- anotheruser13 3y agoReminds me of the late US menswear store, Jos. A Banks. My dad used to buy his work clothes there.