Ramachandran

Ramachandran is an Indian name used as both a given name and a surname, particularly among Tamil-speaking communities in Tamil Nadu and the Indian diaspora. It is a compound form derived from Rama and Chandran, reflecting Hindu naming practices and regional linguistic patterns.

Prominent individuals with this name include M. G. Ramachandran (1917–1987), a Tamil film actor and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, commonly known by the initials MGR. Another notable figure is G. N. Ramachandran, an Indian physicist who, in 1963, helped introduce a widely used concept in protein chemistry known as the Ramachandran plot.

The Ramachandran plot is a graphical representation of the allowed values of the backbone dihedral angles phi and psi for amino acid residues in protein chains. It helps assess conformational quality in protein structures derived from X-ray crystallography or NMR, and it distinguishes regions corresponding to alpha-helices, beta-sheets, and other secondary structures.

Variations of the name include Ramachandra and Ramachander, and the name appears across different Indian languages and communities.