Traditional Indian Baby Names

About this collection

Traditional is our label for names with a long, documented history of use as personal names. Most have a clear dictionary meaning and many belong to figures in scripture or epic: Arjun and Parth from the Mahabharata, Krishna and Madhav, Gautam and Aditi from the Vedic and Buddhist traditions, Padma, a name of Lakshmi, and Meera, the poet-saint of Rajasthan. Ravi, Vikram, Priya and Divya have been ordinary given names for many generations.

The label is about age and attestation, not religion. The same list holds Muhammad, Ali, Ahmed, Fatima and Maryam, which have been used in India for centuries, as well as Gurpreet, Arshdeep and Jashandeep from the Sikh tradition, Aadhavan from Tamil, and Daniel and Sarah from the Bible. A traditional name is one that a grandparent would recognise without explanation.

Choosing a traditional name usually means choosing a known pronunciation and spelling, which matters when a child will have the name read aloud by people from other regions. It also means a meaning you can show someone in a dictionary; each guide links to the entry so you can read the senses yourself.