Evidence record · given name

Meaning and use are separate questions.

Lexical evidence: A dictionary-based meaning for the complete personal name has not been established here.

Documented use: Davinder Singh Garcha and the shorter Davinder Singh are explicitly related in Olympedia; World Athletics records a different athlete with the latter form.

An explicit distinction in a reference record

Olympedia’s record for the hockey player Davinder Singh gives Davinder Singh Garcha as the full name and Davinder Singh as the used name. It identifies Amritsar in Punjab as his birthplace, Punjab Police as an affiliation and India’s 1980 Olympic hockey gold as the result associated with him. This connects the shorter and longer forms within one identified sporting life.[1]

The used-name field is direct evidence of a reference convention, rather than a reason to assume that Garcha must appear in every match report. Equally, a result under Davinder Singh should not automatically be assigned to this player without the sport, period and remaining identifying details.[1]

The full name in an official award citation

The President’s Secretariat’s 2021 sports-award citations use Davinder Singh Garcha for the recipient of a Dhyan Chand Award. The account identifies the 1980 Olympic team and participation in 1979 tournaments, then records later work coaching younger players. This supplies a formal full-name occurrence in a national honour, distinct from the reference database’s shorter heading.[2]

The citation documents why a sporting achievement was recognised; it does not explain the name’s linguistic construction. Its full form is retained as part of identifying this award recipient. No complete-name translation follows from the player’s career or from the honour’s commemorative title.[2]

The same shorter form can name somebody else

World Athletics has an athlete record headed Davinder Singh for a javelin thrower born on 18 December 1988. Its athlete code is 14658886, and it records a personal best achieved in May 2017. The different birth year, event and institutional identifier distinguish this athlete from the 1980 Olympic hockey player.[3]

This is why a name entry should preserve context instead of combining results from a shared heading. The inspected records establish actual Davinder usage but do not establish that Davinder and Devinder are interchangeable spellings for every person, or disclose either athlete’s family naming intention.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Olympedia / OlyMADMen. Davinder Singh: athlete 19264 ↗specialist sports reference record · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Full name and used name fields, Amritsar birthplace, Punjab Police affiliation and 1980 Olympic result. Accessed 2026-11-04.Olympedia distinguishes full and used names and records the 1980 result; original Olympic and police records were not independently examined.Return to An explicit distinction in a reference record, paragraph 1 ↑Return to An explicit distinction in a reference record, paragraph 2 ↑
  2. President’s Secretariat, Government of India. Dhyan Chand Award 2021: Davinder Singh Garcha ↗official national sports-award citation · Source date: 2021 · Locator: Dhyan Chand Award 2021 section, paragraph headed “Shri. Davinder Singh Garcha”, between Abhijit Kunte and Vikas Kumar citations. Accessed 2026-11-04.The President’s 2021 award citation was checked through indexed PDF text after direct retrieval exceeded the web reader limit; original sporting records were not separately examined.Return to The full name in an official award citation, paragraph 1 ↑Return to The full name in an official award citation, paragraph 2 ↑
  3. World Athletics. Davinder Singh: athlete code 14658886 ↗sports federation athlete record · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Athlete overview: name, javelin event, birth date, athlete code and personal-best table. Accessed 2026-11-04.The athlete overview was previously retrieved directly; in this recheck the web reader returned 403 and indexed text supplied the name, event, birth date and personal best.Return to The same shorter form can name somebody else, paragraph 1 ↑Return to The same shorter form can name somebody else, paragraph 2 ↑
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Record PH-NAM-0023 · English edition · human review not performed