Through a comment to my post on Concatenated Bengali Names, Dave asked
Can you explain the difference between Chatterjee and Chattopadyay? Is the former the anglicized version of the latter? Also, how is Satyajit Ray’s last name pronounced in Bengali? Is it Ray, Rai, or Roy?
Another person (Partha Chatterjee) responded through a follow up comment that Chatterjee is indeed an anglicized version of Chattopadhyay. What I did not know is that “Ray” is pronounced as “Roy” in Bengali. I always thought that it was “Rai.” Perhaps, it is just the same, again different spellings for what should be the same pronunciation.
Some anglicized Indian last names are minor variations of the spelling or the pronunciation. However, I could think of only the following cases, where the surname seems to be pretty different from the original one (the first three are very commonly known as anglicized versions):
- Chatterjee (Chattopadhyay)
- Bannerjee (Bandopadhyay)
- Mukherjee (Mukhopadhyay)
- Scindia (Shinde) (This does not look vastly different from the original, though)
I wonder if there are many more!
Hi , I have a few more to add to your list :
1. Ganguly ( Gangopadhyay )
2. Acherjee ( Acharjjo )
3. Sinha ( Singho )
4. Basu ( Bosu )
others
Laha Law
Saha Shaw
Mitra Mitter
Some more :
Sircar (Sarkar)
Doss/Dass (Das)
Ray (Roy)
Bhattacharjee (Bhattacharya)
Bose/Basu (Bosu)
Ghose (Ghosh)
Paul (Pal)
Dutt (Datta/Dutta)
Shenai to Shenoy
Desai to Dessay