What's in a name?

Long before double Christen names were a fad was my grandmother.

In fact, my grandmother was probably one of the pioneers of double-naming her grandchildren, which has since become a very Singaporean trend in naming babies in Singapore, all because these parents probably couldn't quite decide between two, or three, or four names, and decided to stick all the names into the poor child's birth certificate. What they don't realise of course is that the poor child will end up suffering from identity crises all the rest of its days.

Anyway, back to me and my double names.

When I was younger, I couldn't spell my main English name because it was too complicated for a young child, plus I wasn't particularly bright for my age. So I went to school with the other English name that I could spell AND pronounce, albeit still with a certain measure of difficulty.

At this point, I think I should interject with this extra piece of information, besides saddling me with TWO English names, my wonderful grandmother also wanted to reinforce the first impressions I make on other people, by giving me three-syllabic names! Oh, and not to mention my super ultra special Chinese name as well.

Which thus explains why I grow up scarred and traumatised by an entire childhood of people asking me to repeat my name umpteen times. (For a Primary One child on her first day at school, that can be pretty traumatic!).

I also had to put up with mis-spellings and mispronounciations of my name, not that I actually knew how to pronounce it properly myself in the first place, it was so rare a name in those times, and even now actually!

When I turned 18, I decided that enough is enough. No more answering stoopid questions about my name and how to spell it and was I from Timbuctoo! So I decided to revert to my rightful name, which incidentally, while a bit less rare, still poses the same problems. But this I only realised on retrospect.

It's funny how Singaporeans pride themselves for being cosmopolitan and well-educated with high English-speaking capabilities, and still yet unable to pronounce much lest spell a name! The various corruptions of my name, if not so bewilderingly and baffling ridiculous, would have been quite funny even. Some even tried to change my sex by calling me by the male version of my name.

On the flip side, the name has increased my memorability level on first meetings. At least I hope that people found me, and my name, intriguing and mysterious, as opposed to freakish.

Anyway, thanks to Google, I've finally realised the potential of my names, when previously I just thought they were concoctions of my grandmother's overactive imagination. Either that or she got it off from a peanut butter brand label in her holidays abroad.

But I've realised, never mind how alienishly wierd my names sound, they do really have quite nice meanings. Both have Latin origins, and one means "joy" and the other "peace", which in truth is a wonderful combination of characteristics in a personality. Whether there is any truth in those names in MY personality, that remains very much to be seen, still.

Even Shakespeare questioned "what's in a name?". Hundred of years later today, I still don't know the answer to that question.

I guess a name just makes for easy identification, practically speaking. At the end of the day, it's really growing into the name that will make it come alive. I, for one, am keeping my fingers crossed that I will grow into joyfulness and peacefulness.

So, you can call me "O" and "Oei", whichever you prefer!