Captain Smit Machchhar's surname means mosquito, and has a fascinating story
Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian aviator, is being hailed across the world as a hero for helping save flydubai passengers despite being stabbed in the cockpit by his Omani co-pilot. With Machchhar coming into the spotlight, there is curiosity over his surname. On social media and in our workspaces, many of us might have come across the question. "Machchhar, what kind of surname is that?" The curiosity was natural. After all, Captain Machchhar's surname sounds exactly like the Hindi word for mosquito.
For many Indians outside Gujarat and western India, the name immediately evoked the everyday Hindi-Gujarati word for mosquito. Journalist Sheela Bhatt said on X that the curiosity had reached her WhatsApp chats, and people asked why the captain's surname was Machchhar.
The answer takes us deep into the fascinating world of surnames in Gujarat, where families carry names such as Hathi, meaning elephant, Ghoda, meaning horse, Mankad, associated with a bug, and Popat, meaning parrot.MACHCHHAR IS ESTABLISHED GUJARATI SURNAME
A little digging reveals that Machchhar is, in fact, an established Gujarati surname, found among communities including Nagar Brahmins and Lohanas, a mercantile and trading community from Sindh and Kutch. While the precise origin of the Machchhar surname is uncertain, an old study of Gujarati surnames offers several possibilities, from a word changing over generations and a family taking its name from where it lived, to a nickname that simply stuck.
Professor Vinodini Nilkanth, in her 1942 book 'Gujarati Atakono Itihas' (History of Gujarati Surnames), devoted an entire section to surnames born from humorous or satirical nicknames and explained how personal characteristics could eventually become family identities.
Discussing such names, she repeatedly cautioned that apparently obvious explanations were not necessarily certain, and offered alternative origins for several surnames rather than presenting folklore as established history.
The surname Machchhar is also present across the border in Pakistan. Karachi has a big neighbourhood called Machhar Colony. However, a report in Pakistani newspaper Dawn said its name didn't come from mosquitoes but from a Sindhi word connected with fishermen, which reflected the area's large fishing community.
So, how did a word most Indians know as the name of a pesky insect become a family name?MACCHHAR ISN'T JUST A MOSQUITO
The surname, Machchhar, drew attention after the extraordinary events aboard the Dubai-Tel Aviv flydubai flight. Israeli officials said Machchhar, despite being seriously wounded in the cockpit, managed to activate the cockpit-door release. Passengers and crew then overpowered the Omani co-pilot, who Israeli PM Benjammin Netanyahu said, was indoctrinated by radical Islamist ideology. Meanwhile, two flydubai pilots travelling as passengers helped in landing the Boeing 737. There were 174 people onboard Flight FZ1073, according to Israeli officials cited in reports.
As praise poured for the Indian hero, people began looking at the hero's surname name. "We Indians are like this only! We are inquisitive and curious," journalist Sheela Bhatt wrote on X. "So many are wondering, in my WhatsApp chats, why captain Smit's surname is Machchhar?"
Bhatt pointed out that it was hardly unheard of in Gujarat. She cited surnames among the Nagar community such as Hathi, Mankad and Mankodi, and linked Machchhar to a much wider Gujarati naming tradition.
Mumbai-based journalist-author Saurabh Shah offered another explanation. "One of the many meanings of Machchhar is vigour or passion," Shah wrote on X, pointing to Volume 7, page 6873 of the Bhagvad Gomandal Kosh, the monumental Gujarati encyclopaedic dictionary.
Shah said Machchhar was commonly associated with Gujarati Nagar Brahmins and cited Mankad, Hathi, Ghoda and Mankodi as other surnames found in the community.
"Captain Smit Machchhar has proved that his surname is quite meaningful, and he has imbibed it fully," Shah wrote on X.WHAT AN OLD BOOK SAYS ABOUT MACHCHHAR
The roots of the Machchhar surname appear to be more intriguing in Professor Vinodini Nilkanth's book, Gujarati Atakono Itihas, which was published by the Gujarat Vernacular Society in Ahmedabad in 1942. The book systematically examined how Gujarati surnames emerged from places, professions, personal characteristics and nicknames.
Nilkanth's discussion is important because it showed why a surname that looks self-explanatory today might have a very different history.
Another explanation for Gujarat's unusual surnames lies in geography. According to Nagar(dot)org's account of Nagar heritage, several Nagar surnames originated from the names of villages and towns. It traces Ghoda to Ghodadra, Hathi to Hathap, Mankad or Mankar to Mankadvada, and Mankodi to Mankodivada. The same pattern is seen in larger Nagar group identities, such as Vadnagara from Vadnagar, Visnagara from Visnagar, Sathodra from Sathod and Chitroda from Chitod. This is important because a surname that today resembles the name of an animal or insect might have begun simply as a marker of where a family came from.
Nilkanth recorded several possible explanations for Machchhar rather than settling on one.
One theory connected it with "matsar", a Gujarati/Sanskrit-derived word associated with jealousy or envy, suggesting that the word could have changed in pronunciation over generations. Another possibility linked the surname to families identified with a place where mosquitoes were particularly abundant.
Then Nilkanth came to perhaps the most characteristically Gujarati explanation of humour.
Nilkanth documented a broader class of surnames that could begin as teasing names based on someone's body, behaviour, habits or circumstances. A joke attached to one person could remain attached to his descendants until what began as an "upnaam", or nickname, became an "atak", a surname.
Nilkanth warned against treating every explanation as established etymology. For several surnames, Nilkanth explicitly gave competing possibilities or said their true origin could not be determined.
While the surname Machchhar might certainly mean mosquito, that doesn't prove the community's kind of association with the insect.
Journalist Sheela Bhatt similarly noted in her X post that Nagar community surnames include Machchhar, Hathi, Mankad and Mankodi. She described Nagars as a historically educated community with a long association with administration and learning, and pointed to the 15th-century Gujarati bhakti poet Narsinh Mehta, associated with the bhajan Vaishnava Jan To, as perhaps its most celebrated historical name.
A Mumbai-based person, Arjun Mody, summed up the moment and curiosity on X. "If your surname is Machchhar and you grew up in India, you've probably heard the mosquito jokes all your life," but Captain Smit Machchhar had turned it "into a moment of pride for the whole country".
Of course, Smit Machchhar's valour and heroics have now taken a Gujarati surname, whose exact origins remain uncertain, beyond the region where it existed. Machchhar might literally mean mosquito, but Captain Smit Machchhar has now given his surname the ring of courage.- Ends
Sushim Mukul is aΒ keen observer, with interest in polity, geopolitics, culture and heritage.
