Groom Friedrich Engels (2L), bride Bismitha along with Marx (L), Lenin (2R) and Ho Chi Minh (R) pose for pictures during their wedding ceremony in Kerala on Monday. Agence France-Presse

The hammer and sickle remain in vogue across Kerala, where the Communist Party has governed for much of the last six decades, with revolutionary names like Stalin and Trotsky popular.

Engels and Lenin are brothers, while Marx and Ho Chi Minh are the sons of a local party activist, according to the newspaper Mathrubhumi.

All four men are active members of the Communist Party, the report said, but Marx flew back from Dubai to attend the wedding in Athirappilly.

India leaned more towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and Russian monikers including even Pravda — the name of the USSR's state newspaper — are not unheard of, particularly in the south.

Tamil Nadu's current chief minister is M.K. Stalin, named by his father in honour of the Soviet dictator just days before he died in Russia.

A wedding in that state in June saw Socialism married off in front of brothers Communism, Leninism and Marxism.

His bride was P. Mamata Banerjee, named by her grandfather for a firebrand left-wing politician in West Bengal, who ironically ended decades of communist rule in the state back in 2011.

Agence France-Presse