This is one of the concepts I like the most personally. The plan was to remove discrimination as the emphasis is on an egalitarian society. It also ensures women don't change their surnames after marriage (if they are practicing Sikhs). The religion is pretty egalitarian in that respect, and there is no role the women can't take up in the religion. Since most of the Sikhs are Punjabis, and Punjabi society still isn't quite feminist, you don't get to see this as much in practice as you should. As in, I don't know of a female Head Granthi in major Gurdwaras. For context, a Granthi is a reader of the religious text, employed by the Gurdwara for daily services. Anyone can read the book though, just to be clear. Some people might use the word priest for Granthi, but that's incorrect because Sikhism doesn't have priests or bishops, as everyone is equal, and positions of power that wield influence aren't supposed to be present, as Sikhism doesn't believe special titles like priests or bishops bestow any special capabilities. I do hope that as the Punjabi society progresses (or we see more people from other ethnicities taking up these roles), we'll see more involvement of women in such roles, as the egalitarian bit and no degradation of women is something I've always liked quite a bit personally.

Thanks for sharing! This was a comprehensive perspective of current practices.

It was a noble concept, but everybody fell off the track pretty fast (this concept was started by the last Sikh Guru in 1699, a little over 300 years ago). Nowadays Singh and Kaur is mostly used as a middle name, and everybody has a last name. The last names tell you which "caste" the person is.

I am a Non-sikh Indian and totally loved this idea of same last names. In our society people judge you based on your last name (caste) and I never liked it. My son's last name is Singh.

This can't coexist all that well with the main purpose of names: To distinguish people from each other...

Rome managed hundreds of years with like 2 names and numbering their kids

Even worse they changed names entirely over their lifetimes. Looking at you one of 10 "Gaius Octavius"s. Specifically G. O. Thurinus ahem Agustus.

Not to mention two Rome's...

Well it's a bit like browser fingerprinting right? You don't need seven billion different UserAgents to distinguish users. A few features is enough to distinguish this Chrome user from another. That's especially true with small population size: all these traditions started out small.