History of Goan Family Surnames: The Nadkarnis

Tracing the etymology of one’s family surnames is an interesting piece of history. It is an exploration. It gives one an insight into one’s family ancestry, roots, occupation, etc. In the light of the above let us first trace the etymological history of a very prominent historic family surname that is the Nadkarnis.

Various roots have been suggested. The commonly held etymological root of the nomenclature, Nadkarni is ‘Nad’ meaning bad, wicked in Konkani and ‘karni’ meaning deed or action thereby meaning a bad deed. But this etymological root is not true at all. It is a distortion of its original historical root. Holding this at the etymology is vicious and malicious.

The true etymology that we arrive at when scanning through the pages of history is as follows:
The Kadambas from the Karnataka region ruled over Goa from the 11th century to the mid 14th century – for a period of three and a half centuries. Hence the influence and impact of this Hallekannada-speaking dynasty is seen on various aspects of Goa especially on the administrative and cultural aspects. Nadkarni is actually a title or designation held by an officer from Goa during the Kadamba rule. Nadkarni was the title of the Goan officer who kept accounts of a tract that is of a stretch of land. It was similar to the other title called Kulkarni.
These are derive from ‘Karni’ an abbreviation of the Kannada word ‘Karanika’ which means a writer of accounts.

Nadu like Tamil Nadu is a word that stands for a territorial unit or division or region. Thereby during the Kannada Kadamba and Vijayanagara dynasties Nadkarni meant a village accountant or a officer who wrote accounts of a given village or mahal(taluka). Nadkarnis in particular maintained land records.

In Karnataka there are officers or village headmen like Nad Gauda.
Nadkarni like Kulkarni or Deshpande or Deshmukh, Desai, Sardesai, Nayak and so on were hereditary titles received by the families from the kings or the village institutions.
In Goa we had titles or designations like Khot, Kamat, Bhandari, Keni, Prabhudesai, Sardesai, Desai, Rajyadhakshya, Phadnis, Sabnis, Danayat, Dalvi, Karnik, Rao, Mahale(in charge of a mahal or taluka), Padiyar, Nadkarni, Naik, Dubhashi, Deshprabhu and so on.

The titles like Kulkarni, Deshpande and Deshmukh are found in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Thus Nadkarni is a title steeped in the pre-Portuguese history of Goa.

By Prajal Sakhardande
The Sunday Navhind Times
PANORAMA November 21, 2004

Posted By : Prajal Sakhardande, Goa on 02/05/2007