The contribution of this book to existing work in socio-onomastic research is its treatment of the official and unofficial names of the two Indian Christian communities (i. e., Kerala Syrian Christians and Telugu Catholics), in terms of the functions they fulfil in the lives of the community members. This work is based on empirical data and thus highlights empirical issues and applications, meant to make the book of use to the current generation of linguists and sociolinguists. The author strikes a balance between qualitative and quantitative approaches and analyses of data. In addition, both reflexive and constitutive approaches to naming have been used.

The contribution of this book to existing work in socio-onomastic research is its treatment of the official and unofficial names of the two Indian Christian communities (i. e., Kerala Syrian Christians and Telugu Catholics), in terms of the functions they fulfil in the lives of the community members. This work is based on empirical data and thus highlights empirical issues and applications, meant to make the book of use to the current generation of linguists and sociolinguists. The author strikes a balance between qualitative and quantitative approaches and analyses of data. In addition, both reflexive and constitutive approaches to naming have been used.

This book gives a sociolinguistic account of Syrian Christian and Telugu Catholic personal names. Unlike previous works on the linguistic or sociolinguistic analysis of the personal names of Indian Christians, which have mainly used a reflexive approach to analyse names, this book takes a constitutive approach by analysing the personal names of two Indian Christian communities (Telugu Catholics and Syrian Christians) from the perspective of community members. This novel approach provides greater insights into individuals’ motivations for naming and how names are used to create social identities. 'A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Indian Christian Names: The Case of Telugu Catholics and Syrian Christians' also provides a historical background of how names have evolved in these communities and explores the adaptation strategies used by Indian Christians through the act of naming (e.g., appending caste titles to Christian names, the use of Sanskrit personal names and Christian surnames) as well as the role of culture in naming (e.g., the use of other names, the role of caste titles in indicating one’s identity). This book paves the way for more qualitative studies to arise in the analysis of first names and will be valuable to graduate students and academics in the fields of onomastics, linguistics, religious studies, and history. It will also appeal to those interested in Indian Christianity in general.

The Syrian Christians are a Christian community, from Kerala, in the south west corner of India. The Syrian Christians arrived in Kerala, around 52 AD, established local churches and conducted their worship liturgy in Syriac. They have a unique set of names, many derived from the Bible. This book will give you a brief synopsis of the meaning and origin of the last names of Syrian Christians.

The volume seeks to establish socio-onomastics as a field of linguistic inquiry not only within sociolinguistics, but also, and in particular, within pragmatics. The linguistic study of names has a very long history, but also a history sometimes fraught with skepticism, and thus often neglected by linguists in other fields. The volume takes on the challenge of instituting onomastic study into linguistics and pragmatics by focusing on recent trends within socio-onomastics, interactional onomastics, contact onomastics, folk onomastics, and linguistic landscape studies. The volume is an introduction to these fields – with the introductory chapter giving an overview of, and an update on, recent onomastic study – and in addition offers detailed in-depth analyses of place names, person names, street names and commercial names from different perspectives: historically, as well as from the point of view of the impact of globalization and glocalization. All the chapters focus on the use and function of names and naming, on changes in name usage, and on the reasons for, processes in, and results of names in contact.

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 268. Chapters: Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Barlaam and Josaphat, Mangalorean Catholics, Liturgical Calendar of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Saint Thomas Christians, Syrian Malabar Nasrani, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Telugu Christian, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, Dioceses of Saint Thomas of Mylapore, Catholicos of the East, History of the Saint Thomas Christians, St. Thomas Evangelical Fellowship of India, Synod of Diamper, Goa Inquisition, Malankara Church, Stanley Jedidiah Samartha, William Carey, M. T. Joseph, William James Wanless, Velankanni Town, Timeline of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Kuzhivelil Mathew, Easow Mar Timotheos Episcopa, Malabar Independent Syrian Church, Caste system among Indian Christians, Catholicos of The East and Malankara Metropolitan, Placid J. Podipara, The Pentecostal Mission, Abraham Malpan, Muriel Spurgeon Carder, Eric J. Lott, Thomas Mar Athanasius, Maramon Convention, Church of North India, Titus I Mar Thoma, Mar Thoma weddings, Roman Urdu, Anti-Christian violence in India, Trichy-Tanjore Diocese, Anti-Christian violence in Karnataka, Evangeline Anderson Rajkumar, C. Earl Stubbs, Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Dalit Christian, Sadhu Kochoonju Upadesi, St. Thomas Mount, Aiyadurai Jesudasen Appasamy, Abraham Mar Thoma, B. E. Devaraj, Christian Ashram Movement, Emani Sambayya, Alexander Mar Thoma, Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, Saint Thomas Christian names, Christianity in Tamil Nadu, Ananda Rao Samuel, E. Stanley Jones, Manarcad Church, P. A. Sampath Kumar, Baselios Mar Thoma Paulose II, Joshua Russell Chandran, Our Lady of Good Health, Senate of Serampore College, Ancient Crosses of India, Kerala Brethren, Mathews Mar Athanasius Episcopa, Varghese Palakkappillil, Mar Thoma V, Anglican Church of India, Pentecostal Maranatha Gospel Church, Elizabeth Paul, ..

During the twentieth century, the Syrian Christian population of Kerala underwent a process of transition in its demographic and socio-economic status. This book describes the demographic transition in terms of size, composition, geographical distribution, and growth rates of the Christian population in general and the Syrian Christian population in particular. It goes on to study the growth of the Christian population in Kerala in the context of the growth of the Christian population in India. The underlying demographic factors of transition--fertility, mortality, and migration--are analysed in detail. It describes the socio-economic transition of the Syrian Christians as seen in their education levels, employment status, and material possessions. The discussions are carried out in a comparative setting, where corresponding changes that have come about in other communities--Hindus, Muslims, and Latin Christians--are also examined. The book concludes by drawing attention to projected demographic trends and their likely impact on the community. It suggests the need for some introspection by the Syrian Christians to cope with the adverse fall-out of the emerging trends

Religiously, God is the creator of everything seen and unseen; thus, one can ascribe to Him the names of His creation as well, at least in their primordial form. In the mentality of ancient Semitic peoples, naming a place or a person meant determining the role or fate of the named entity, as names were considered to be mysteriously connected with the reality they designated. Subsequently, God gave people the freedom to name persons, objects, and places. However, people carried out this act (precisely) in relation to the divinity, either by remaining devoted to the sacred or by growing estranged from it, an attitude that generated profane names. The sacred/profane dichotomy occurs in all the branches of onomastics, such as anthroponymy, toponymy, and ergonymy. It is circumscribed to complex and interdisciplinary analysis which does not rely on language sciences exclusively, but also on theology, ethnology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, geography, history and other connected fields, as well as culture in general. Despite the contributors’ cultural diversity (29 researchers from 16 countries – England, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, U.S.A., and Zimbabwe – on four continents) and their adherence to different religions and faiths, the studies in Onomastics between Sacred and Profane share a common goal that consist of the analysis of names that reveal a person’s identity and behavior, or the existence, configuration and symbolic nature of a place or an object. One can state that names are tightly connected to the surrounding reality, be it profane or religious, in every geographical area and every historical period, and this phenomenon can still be observed today. The particularity of this book lies in the multicultural and multidisciplinary approach in theory and praxis.

This elegantly written book explores the practice of Christianity among the Yakoba in the small region of Kerala. Susan Viswanathan uses the categories of time, space, architecture, and the body as a means of identifying the ways in which Hindu, Christian, and Syrian strands have been woven together to form a rich cultural tapestry in the region. The Yakoba, on which this study is based, are divided into two distinct groups--the Orthodox Syrians and the Jacobite Syrians. Viswanathan relates their on-going quarrel over ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the ways in which this quarrel affects Syrian Christian life and experience as a whole. She argues that people's interpretations of Christianity are a very powerful mode of cultural expression and societal flexibility.

• Comprehensive study of the St. Thomas in India myth with reference to Christian iconoclasm in South India from the 7th century till today. • Reviews and related material for this book can be accessed on the Acta Indica website at https://ishwarsharan.com/. • The copyright © of this book belongs to Voice of India, 2/18 Ansari Road, New Delhi 110002. The Creative Commons licence for this book is Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND).