Kaur
Kaur, in modern day Punjabi means "princess" and is the name widely used as the second name by female Sikhs. This custom was first introduced in 1699 by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru when he administered Amrit (baptism) to both males and female Sikhs. All female Sikhs were asked to use the name Kaur after their forename and males were to use the name Singh (lion). This custom further confirmed the equality of both genders as was the tradition set by the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak.
However, the original meaning of "Kaur" was "Prince" as in Rajasthan where the word "Kuwar" means prince. In Rajasthan, India 'Kuwar' (from Sanskrit Kumĝra) is commonly used to refer to a prince, and Kuwari (sanskrit Kumĝri) or Kunari is used for a princess (for example see Hira Kunari). However, the word Kuwari in Punjabi means "an unmarried, single girl". Guru Gobind Singh's intention was for the name to be used by both married and unmarried Sikh females, so he gave the name Kaur, which was taken from Sanskrit (Kumĝri), and then converted it into Kaur.
Kaur provides Sikh women with a status equal to all men. This was also intended to reduce the prejudice created by caste-typing based on the family name. Prejudice based on caste was still rampant during Guru Gobind's time (17th century). This particularly affected women who were expected to take their husband's family name upon marriage.
Some Sikhs today have chosen to retain their traditional caste-system based family names in addition to the suffix Kaur or Singh. This appears to defeat part of the purpose of Guru Gobind's mission in requiring a standardised naming system independent of caste or family background.
It is encouraged for Sikhs to follow the tradition set by the tenth Guru in abolishing the caste system and to use the surnames 'Singh' and 'Kaur', or the middle name 'Singh' and 'Kaur' followed by the surname 'Khalsa', meaning "Pure".
However, as the numbers of Sikhs in the world have continued to increase, this poses a problem of duplicity of names, with many individuals having the same exact names. To overcome this, some Sikhs have started to add the name of their village as the surname and so have avoided the problem of many individuals having the same names.
Having searched on the internet, it appears that there are fewer than 5000 unique Sikh forenames. So if one can only use 'Singh' and 'Kaur' as surnames, that gives 10,000 unique names. Considering that there are nearly 25 million Sikhs in the world, that would mean that there would be 2500 individuals with the same exact name. So, adding a further name makes logical sense but it is not clear what system would be compliant with the principle set by the Gurus.
