Daily Human – Srilankan Buddhists with Catholic surnames

If you have followed Sri Lankan cricket, you have surely heard these names.

Aravinda de Silva

Ranjith Fernando

Dilhara Fernando

Thisara Perera

Dhananjaya de Silva

I have and I never noticed one very unique characteristic of these names. Until today that is ( I think of myself as highly curious but I am wondering if I am so if I didn’t notice this all these years )

See the first name and the surname. Can you notice the dissonance between the two?

These players are all Sinhalese Buddhists and their first names are all regular first names that such people have.

But their surnames are all Portuguese Catholic.

Isn’t that quite odd.

Here’s the backstory

The Portuguese colonised the Lankans for 150 odd years in the 16th and 17th centuries. As was their wont wherever they went, they went on s massive conversion spree. Many of the Sinhalese Buddhists were forcibly converted to Catholicism and had to take on Catholic surnames.

A few generations down the line, the Portuguese rule was over. Many of these people willingly converted back to Buddhism.

But when it came to surnames, most of them had forgotten their original Buddhist surnames.

And so they stayed put with their Portuguese Catholic surnames.

I know so many cricket fans and nobody’s ever noticed and spoken about this characteristic of Srilankan names. I wonder if they also didn’t notice.

Or they noticed but didn’t find it interesting enough.

If it’s the latter, then I am still a very curious person. After all I found it so interesting that I decided to write about it 😊😊