What do you call ge nama in Malayalam? Do you call it “house name”?

Yes.

Was supposed to have gone out to play my guitar after my last comment. Couldn’t resist; instead, I googled:-

As King Sri Veera Parakrama Narendra Simha who succeeded Vimaradharmasuriya II [...] on his death bed he nominated his Vaduga Nayakkar brother-in-laws of South Indian origin to succeed him [...] This led to the first South Indian Vaduga Nayakkar to ascend the Throne of Kandy under the Sinhalese name Sri Vijaya Rajasimha in 1739 AC, violating all ancient traditions of kingship. [...] The Vaduga Nayakkars embraced Buddhism, learnt the Sinhalese language and made every effort to naturalise themselves, but cunningly avoided marrying into the local Radala families, the aristocracy. They went on to rule the Kandyan Kingdom for another seventy six years until the last of them, Sri Wickrama Rajasimha was dethroned in 1815 AC with the assistance of the British. (wiki links mine)

All this, of course, is a rather satisfying historical circle. For, between all those centuries of Shaivite and later Advaitic bhakti, the ancient kingdom of Andhras was in fact a vast Buddhist kingdom, second in size and power only to the Mauryas up north. This googling session also explains to me something I’ve always wondered: on why Sri Lanka is Theravada Buddhist, and not Mahayana like ancient India was, and modern China is.

Additionally, Telugu grammar came into being mostly after the 10th-12th centuries; significantly after the events in the Ramayana (if it indeed happened), or even, after the Satavahanas built their capital, Andhrapuri (There’s an Andhra Jyothi article from 2005 that talked about Andhrapuri; I have the link , http://www.andhrajyothy.com/editshow.asp?qry=/2005/nove/21vividha2 , but it seems to be dead).

Which is to say, Ravana could be Andhra (as in, belonging to the Vedic tribe, the Andhras; I really don’t know much eitherways), but it is unlikely that he could have contributed to modern Telugu as such. He is, nevertheless, an accomplished poet in Sanskrit.

Sinhalese names such as Dissanayake, Ramanayake, Somanayake, Rajanayake reveal a Telugu connection with ther “nayak’ suffixes

That makes sense. The nayaka rajas of Maduri are thought to be Telugus. It is possible, a branch of them were in Sri Lanka. This is not widely known in Andhra.

ANNA Said:

Malayalees do that, too.

What do you call ge nama in Malayalam? Do you call it “house name”?

The ge nama always appears before a person’s given name/s.

The same system exists in Andhra Pradesh. ge nama is called inti paeru (literally, house name)in Telugu…Take the example of a Telugu person’s name…Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao

Malayalees do that, too. That’s why I have an Uncle named Kulamasseril Isaac John. Theoretically. (i.e. don’t look that up, I ain’t dumb enough to reveal a ge nama on the intarweb.)