What's in a name, or two, or 6,77,459? In the case of India's villages, that list tells us they love gods, goddesses, nation builders and mythologies above all else, and that, when they migrate, they often take the name of their place of origin with them.
INN went through the names of all 6,77,459, inhabited and uninhabited, villages in India, as listed in Census 2011 — data for which was released recently. Lord Ram ranks way up there, with 3,626 villages named after him, in almost all parts of the country except Kerala, while Lord Krishna is a close second at 3,309.
There are 92 villages in the country whose names start with Bengal/ Bangal and all of them are located outside West Bengal, including Maharashtra, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. There are 33 villages named Kerala outside the state, mainly in the northern parts. There are 17 villages in the name of Prayag (the old name of Allahabad) and 41 named Kashi (the old name of Varanasi). There are 28 Agras outside Uttar Pradesh (most of them in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam), while 189 village names start with Bihar, of which 171 are outside Bihar. There are 28 villages named Dhaka (the capital of Bangladesh) and 40 in the name of Nepal.
Besides, there are 47 villages whose names start with Badri and 75 which feature Kedar — invoking the religious sites which were among the worst hit in the Uttarakhand floods. Most of these villages are located in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
Other Ramayana characters too figure among the names, although Bharat (187 villages) is marginally ahead of Lakshman (160). Hanuman has 367 villages in his name, while Sita has 75. While at least six villages in the country exist in the name of Ravana, and three in the name of his father Ahiravan (all in Bihar), no village is named after Ravana's brother Vibheeshana who crossed over to Ram's side. Some villages in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are named Ayodhya.
When it comes to Mahabharata, Krishna remains the popular choice by far. While there is no Kurukshetra (except Haryana's original Kurukshetra) village in the country, only two villages are named after Yudhisthira, the symbol of truth. There are 385 named after Bhim, and 259 in the name of the other popular Pandava brother, archer Arjun. Only one village bears the name of the patriarch Bhishma and that is in Orissa's Ganjam district.
Not surprisingly, in a country where fealty comes easy, 'Raja' (king), 'Rani' (queen), emperors and sultans dot the list. Leaders of modern India too are a popular choice. Jawaharlal Nehru figures in 72 village names, and there are 117 in the name of Mahatma Gandhi. While there is no village in the name of former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri, 13 are in the name of B R Ambedkar, 36 are named after Indira Gandhi and 19 after Rajiv.
Among the Mughal emperors, Akbar tops the list at 234 villages. His grandfather Babur has 62 villages in his name while father Humayun has only 30. Interestingly, while 51 villages are named after Shahjahan, only eight are in the name of Aurangzeb (all in Bijnore district of UP).
Moving on, if Sholay's infamous dacoit-affected village Ramgarh has 163 namesakes, there are as many as 27 villages named 'Pipli', same as the village in the Aamir Khan production Pipli Live.
While the study of names in general and place names in particular sheds some light on the history, culture and migration trends of any country, there is a lack of expertise in India on the subject. The study of names is called Onomastics and the specific study of place names is called Toponymy.
An IAS officer of Orissa cadre, R Balakrishnan, is involved in place name studies for 25 years and has published many research papers and delivered lectures in different universities on the subject. A systematic study of names can throw light on many obscure pages of Indian prehistory and history, he says.
"Place names are the fossilised representation of an immemorial past. They provide reliable markers for reconstructing the source and trajectories of past migrations, as immigrants in the past have invariably carried the place names of their origins and re-used those names in their new-found homelands. Hence, a comparative study of identical name clusters can offer valid clues to the movement of people from one region to another," Balakrishnan says.
As for reiteration of identity, an example is the 578 villages that bear the name of a Dalit caste, which otherwise cannot be named under the law.
