What's in a name?
I am nearly halfway through third trimester and we haven’t chosen a name yet. Since I can’t read Chinese, therefore I can only still listen how the name “sounds” like. Anyway choosing a name can be one of the most difficult things especially for Chinese, I think. It’s not just the parent’s business; it’s the entire family tree’s business. No kidding.
You see, I’ve learnt that somehow you cannot use the same Chinese character that some relative already have in their names. So you may get some kind of a reminder like grandpa’s sister’s cousin’s daughter’s son is having that already. DUH?!!! Heck… I have never even met these people for goodness sake! Who cares? Assuming everyone has a 2 character name (excluding surname), multiply that with ALL the relatives and minus all the “bad” words, how many other choices are you left? In a multi-lingual country, it’s already mind boggling to find a nice name that doesn’t translate to any em… bodily parts or jeer- prone words in any language. Now you have to this to consider as well.
In the western countries you name your child after someone because you honor that person. People feel proud if there is someone named after them… which is logical. I wouldn’t want my child to have the same name as the person I dislike. But in Chinese culture, it is a disrespect if you have the same character in the name… I said “character” .. just the same character, we are not even talking about having the exact same name yet. Why??
Then after you have shortlisted a few choices, there’s another option. It seems you can actually “calculate” a Chinese name and get a score for it. People who believe this thinks that the higher score the better it is supposed to be. The funnier thing is there are so many ways to do the calculation and the score can be very different for the same name. Ha, gotcha! If this score thingy can truly determine a person’s destiny, I wished mum and dad would have considered this 30 yrs ago. That way instead of working my butt off I could have just sat back and see how success, fame and fortune comes knocking at my door… hm...or a few hits on the jackpot would be neat too.
So, what’s in a name? Aplenty, it seems!!
You see, I’ve learnt that somehow you cannot use the same Chinese character that some relative already have in their names. So you may get some kind of a reminder like grandpa’s sister’s cousin’s daughter’s son is having that already. DUH?!!! Heck… I have never even met these people for goodness sake! Who cares? Assuming everyone has a 2 character name (excluding surname), multiply that with ALL the relatives and minus all the “bad” words, how many other choices are you left? In a multi-lingual country, it’s already mind boggling to find a nice name that doesn’t translate to any em… bodily parts or jeer- prone words in any language. Now you have to this to consider as well.
In the western countries you name your child after someone because you honor that person. People feel proud if there is someone named after them… which is logical. I wouldn’t want my child to have the same name as the person I dislike. But in Chinese culture, it is a disrespect if you have the same character in the name… I said “character” .. just the same character, we are not even talking about having the exact same name yet. Why??
Then after you have shortlisted a few choices, there’s another option. It seems you can actually “calculate” a Chinese name and get a score for it. People who believe this thinks that the higher score the better it is supposed to be. The funnier thing is there are so many ways to do the calculation and the score can be very different for the same name. Ha, gotcha! If this score thingy can truly determine a person’s destiny, I wished mum and dad would have considered this 30 yrs ago. That way instead of working my butt off I could have just sat back and see how success, fame and fortune comes knocking at my door… hm...or a few hits on the jackpot would be neat too.
So, what’s in a name? Aplenty, it seems!!
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