What happens to term Keralite now? asks Shashi Tharoor on Kerala name change

New Delhi: Soon after the Centre approved the CPI(M) government’s recommendation to change the name of Kerala to Keralam, Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor took to X to ask what would now happen to terms such as “Keralite” and “Keralam”.

“All to the good, no doubt, but a small linguistic question for the Anglophones among us: what happens now to the terms “Keralite” and “Keralan” for the denizens of the new “Keralam”? “Keralamite” sounds like a microbe and “Keralamian” like a rare earth mineral…! @CMOKerala (chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan) might want to launch a competition for new terms resulting from this electoral zeal:” he wrote on X.

All to the good, no doubt, but a small linguistic question for the Anglophones among us: what happens now to the terms “Keralite” and “Keralan” for the denizens of the new “Keralam”? “Keralamite” sounds like a microbe and “Keralamian” like a rare earth mineral…! @CMOKerala might…

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) February 24, 2026

Netizens were quick to react and give their suggestions.

A social media user wrote, “#Kerala is proposed to be officially named as #Keralam as in Malayalam. Few new/Anglophone-friendly words: #Keralian - more modern ‘n’ form than Keralite, easier to pronounce; #Keralite - standard; #Malyan - derived from Malayalam, short and precise; #Keralitean - a bit strange but new.”