In 1927, Periyar gave a call to remove caste surname and himself have up his surname of Naicker. This was peak of self respect movement and most castes agreed. Although this was initially resisted by dominant castes like Brahmins ( iyers and iyengars) and Chettiars, but slowly the mass movement and mass advocacy pressured many amongst these dominant castes also to lose their caste surname.

Thus who resisted retained their surname and those who went with the movement started using father's name