History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

162 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP IV.

influence it was born, and the parents afterwards make the choice of one of them according to their own pleasure. Should one of the names mentioned have been borne by an ancestor, preference is naturally given to it. In recent years, however, this rule has not always been observed, and names not included in those given by the ‘‘joshi” are sometimes adopted.

1 The Parsis have no surnames which go down from generation to generation in a family, as is the case among Europeans. The sons of Thompson, Brown, Jones, and Smith, and their descendants, are all Thompson, Brown, Jones, and Smith, but the Parsis give one name to the child, and after its name is taken that of the father. If the son is named Ardeshir, and his father’s name is Framji, the name he would always bear would be Ardeshir Framji. When this son attains to man’s estate and a child is born to him, and supposing that he is named Pestanji, he is called Pestanji Ardeshir, and when again a son is born to Pestanji, and if he is named Jehangir, he is called Jehangir Pestanji. So the grandfather’s name is always dropped. Owing to there being many persons of the same name, it became a practice to add a certain “atak” or distinguishing affix indicating the profession to which they belong. This is handed down for one or two generations, but as soon as any member of that family takes to any other profession or calling he changes his “atak.” For instance, if Manakji Kavasji is a carpenter he writes his name as Manakji Kavasji Sutar (carpenter). If his son Jamshedji becomes a schoolmaster, he calls himself Jamshedji Manakji Master, and if his son becomes an attorney or solicitor he adds Vakil (solicitor) after the names of himself and his father. In some cases the name of a distinguished ancestor is preserved by adding it after the father’s name instead of the “atak,” but this is not continued for more than four or five generations.

We now give an almost complete list of names of Parsi men and women in general use at present. Those that have a Hindu origin are marked with asterisks, and the rest are Persian names. Of course the Hindu names were adopted by the Parsis after their settlement in India, just as they adopted many of the Hindu manners and customs and dress, and also perhaps to hide their nationality in order to escape persecution at the hands of the fanatical Mahomedans.