Sometimes, when reading texts published in India, written by authors of Indian origin, I notice a usage of the word one in the sense of 'named,' or 'is called.' For instance, it's present in this quote from Devdutt Pattanaik's Olympus, published in 2016:
The story of Minos's vengeance comes from the second-century work Bibliotheca (meaning 'library'), a vast collection of Greek myths written by one Apollodoros.
I've also seen it in older books and news articles from the '60s and the '70s, mainly by authors who have lived in India or other parts of the subcontinent for their whole lives.
Now, this usage is included in many dictionaries, including Collins, Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge. Oxford defines it best; per the New Oxford American Dictionary, 'one' as a determiner is
used before a name to denote a person who is not known to the reader to hearer; a certain : he worked as a clerk for one Mr. Ming.
This is useful, but not terribly insightful. It does not have a usage note, unfortunately, which leaves me wondering: Where did it come from? Was it a usage that began in and is limited to the subcontinent? (I doubt it, as none of the Indian languages I know use similar constructions.) Or is it something brought in by the British, adopted by the subcontinent, and eventually died off in the rest of the Anglosphere? Would a native speaker without prior exposure to the usage reading the quote above consider it correct, or would they have to re-read it and scratch their head about it? Is it a declining usage, even in the Indian subcontinent? Am I wrong that it's limited to the subcontinent; is it present in other regions' English as well?
A few notes on the Oxford definition- I've never, ever, heard it in spoken English, as 'hearer' implies, although it's certainly possible that it is used so in other places.
Also, it's not quite the same as 'a certain'. Merriam-Webster's definition for 'a certain' reads
used with the name of a person one does not know : *In 1889, a certain Mr. Kelly made a large donation to the church.
Yes, 'a certain Mr. Kelly' could have been changed to 'one Mr. Kelly,' and, yes, the definition is similar, and yes, they do have the same function, but I think that 'a certain's' meaning is shifting to an almost ironic sense and refers to someone famous, as in 'That imoverished young man was none other than a certain Mr. Andrew Carnegie,' or 'as a child, she lived right next-door to a certain Lionel Messi." The usage of 'one' is not like that- it has always, in my experience, functioned as a way to tell the reader: "this is the person's name, you likely haven't (and aren't expected to have) heard of them before, it's not important that you remember it, and this name isn't going to come up again. I would say that 'one' is best replaced with, or equivalent to, 'named.' I've done some research online and can't really find much of use.
A few more supplementary examples:
His eighth-standard maths teacher was one Mr Ragavendran.
The son was married to the merchant's daughter, one Anahita.
This work was done by the peon, one Raju, who wore a grey uniform every day.
Note that the sentences would remain grammatical, even if the 'one' were removed, although I would remove the commas were you to replace it with 'named.'
