Panicker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Panicker is a title and last name attributed to members of certain castes of ethnic South Indians in the state of Kerala. Members of Hindu castes Nair and Ezhava have this last name. So do many Christians from the Syrian Catholic and Syrian Orthodox communities in Kerala.

In the case of the Nairs, they were teachers and grandmasters of the martial arts. The word has been derived, as far as the Nairs are concerned, from the Sanskrit word Parinayaka which means military commander. They were generals and the royal bodyguards in the past.

In the erstwhile princely state of Travancore, the Maharajah conferred this title on some prominent subjects from different communities, probably in return for some services.

Famous Nair Panicker Families include:

Chalayil (Kavalam, Alappuzha):
- Sardar K.M. Panicker
- Dr. K. Ayyappa Panicker
- Kavalam Narayana Panikkar belong to this family.

Ulanattu (Guruvayoor)

Famous Ezhava Panikkar Families include:

Muloor (Patthanamthitta, Kerala); The Poet, Muloor Padmanabha Panicker

Varanapallil
Lakshana panickers- were kalari trainers from Allepey

Famous Christian Panickers include:

Kundara

Father Raimundo Panikkar

Mavelikkara

Archbishop Mar Ivanios (Geevarghese Panicker/Pannikkaruveettil)

There are more than a dozen ways to spell this surname in the Roman alphabet, but they all represent one spelling in Malayalam. The second consonant is a retroflex nasal. It is normally represented by a single letter "n": but many British and American clerks automatically double it to "nn", and a few families in Britain and America spell their names that way. The third consonant is usually represented as "kk": this is a Malayalam convention taken over from Tamil, as a single intervocalic consonant would normally be voiced, although Malayalam has distinct voiced and unvoiced letters. However "ck" is more in keeping with English convention, and many Malayalis automatically rewrite the name in this fashion when copying documents. The third vowel is usually spelt "a", but an "e" without emphasis also represents this sound in English speech.

Following the current conventions for Romanising Malayalam without diacritic marks, the name would be "Panikkar." Panikker, Panicker, Panickar, Paniker, Panikar, Panniker, Pannikar and possibly other variants are to be found.