Eighth-grader's name is a mouthful

The (Tinley Park) Daily Southtown

TINLEY PARK, Ill. -- When your first name is as pedestrian as Paul, you tend to compensate for it on the back end.

But Maripadavuputhenpurayil?

That's how an affable Tinley Park eighth-grader spells his last name. All 23 letters.

Maripadavuputhenpurayil is a family surname that dates back generations to a small farming village in southern India.

Paul, as he is better known in hallways and classrooms at Grissom Middle School in Tinley Park, said he learned in third grade that his name was nearly as long as the English alphabet.

"In sections of India, homes are identified by names, not numbers," Paul said. "It's actually a house name."

The 14-year-old said he remembers seeing a letter his father, Yacob, was mailing to relatives in India, and the envelope had a name he hadn't seen before.

Paul asked his mother about it.

"She told me it was our real name," he said. "Since then, I decided I would use that as my last name."

Paul's parents go by a 13-letter version of the name, Maripadavupil.

Paul, who moved with his family from Oak Forest, Ill., to Tinley Park several months ago, said it took him part of the third grade to learn how to assemble the 10 vowels and 13 consonants that make up Maripadavuputhenpurayil.

"It took some practice," he said. "But I finally got it."

He's proud of his family surname, and he wants others to know he's proud of it, too.

Paul said he hasn't had any major problems with having a surname longer than the alphabets of many languages.

The only challenge he has faced through having such a long name, even by southern Indian standards, has been fitting it on the back of his football jersey.

"I love football," he said.

He played in an Oak Forest Park District league and a church league last year.

"But there's a limit of 11 letters, and there's no way they can fit my whole name on the back of a jersey," he said. "So I use David. That's my middle name."