The Names
Thursday, July 14th, 2005Dear Nobody,
You know what tickles my fancy? Some people’s names! I think it’s really strange the way some parents name their children. Did they really mean for their kids to sound ridiculous, or they really thought that the names sounded really good? Well I’m suddenly on to the topic of names because I just gotten into a local university and well, I’ve met some people with some pretty amazing names.
So at the start of orientation, I was going through the list of names (looking for mine and also scanning for some hot-sounding ones) when I came across this person with the name: See Sharp. Yes, people, SEE SHARP! Isn’t that a lark? I couldn’t believe it. It’s like the music key C Sharp you know? I wonder if when the parents gave him/her the name did they really intended that musical pun? Or maybe they intended their child to grow up to be a very observant person. I meant to meet that person during the orientation, but unfortunately I was unable to locate him/her among the 500+ new students. I would dearly love to go up to her/him and go ‘Hey, See Sharp, nice to meet you! What a coincidence: I’m D flat!’. Hahaha!
Oh, and my hostel mate during orientation has the name ‘Cis’ as part of her Chinese name. Poor gal! Imagine you had to go through life with a malay profanity sounding name?
But the one that really tops it has got to be this particular chinese name that is homophonic with a rather unflattering cantonese expression of appearances. I won’t mention the person’s real name here, but i would reveal to you that her name really is pronnounced almost exactly houu yoke shuin (cantonese: very ugly). LOL! Really, the parents should name this person Leng Lei or something, since the surname that precedes is pronnounced as ‘houu’ (cantonese: very). At least it could be houu leng lui (cantonese: very pretty girl). It might sound odd, and a tad bit narcissitic, but it sure beats ‘very ugly’!
Really, parents should really think properly before naming their kids. Maybe people in the past have less education and can be forgiven. But people nowadays should really be more careful, to avoid their kids being the laughingstock of their pals. You really don’t want to walk the world sounding like Malay,Chinese or English profanities/obscenities.
But of course, there are people whose names are strange, but they’re the family names, so actually it’s really nobody’s fault, just by pure bad luck that their names are homophones with some…er…suggestive slang.
During my university orientation, I met someone with the surname Kum, pronounced as ‘come’. Ok, first of all I have to clarify that the person whose name this belongs to is one of the most pleasant, nicest, smartest AND articulate people I have ever met (she’s a debate champion). I am sorry, dear, but I have to include this in my List of Amazing Names. I really feel kinda sorry, she must’ve gotten LOADS of ‘come’ and…*ahem* ‘cum’ jokes. But in this case I would like to point out that the name this is absolutely not the fault of the family. It’s just a name. And I’m mentioning it because it’s really worth mentioning. What a rare and amazing pun. I really don’t intend to insult okay? It’s just really astonishing, you know!
Another person with a strange name: used to be in my secondary school. I don’t know him but I know his name. Name is Tiew. Now this is someone that I’m REALLY sorry for! He’s a Chinese guy some more. You can imagine all the jokes he gets. I really don’t mean to insult your family name, but…really, it just blows me away! Again, I’m sorry for all the jokes that you get, but I really can’t help exclaiming at this bizarre phenomenon.
Well, but I have to say that despite all that I notice that people have really improved when it comes to naming their kids. You no longer hear anyone with stupid names that really don’t mean anything. That is the worst. I know there are people who name their children for the sake of naming. Like naming their son Ah Chai. Or their daughters Anakku Sayang. Don’t believe me? It’s true! There are people with those names. They’re just really rare now. Thank God. I think that’s really stupid. If you had a building to name, you wouldn’t call it something like Wisma Bangunan right? Defeats the whole purpose of naming it. How ridiculous.
Oh but if I should be re-named myself, I think I should be named Ah Laeng or Dayangku Ayu. Heheh.
The Tickled One: Signing off – peace out, fellas!
Disclaimer: The writer apologises for poking fun at other people’s names and does not intend to offend anybody with the above blog entry. Any similarities between the readers’ names and the aforementioned names are purely coincidental.
Now that I recall, I used to know a person with the name Chee Kern. I’m so sorry, but that really blows me away! LOL! And to think they spelt ‘Kern’ with an R there, so you can’t even call him ‘ken’ or ‘keen’. No other way to pronounce it but ‘chickern’.
