Names

What is it in a name? To me, it is something you would be listening to for the rest of your life and something that represents you. Maybe even something you might sub consciously live up to. Thus, searching for a GOOD name is TOUGH.

When I was pregnant with my son, I searched very hard for a good name.

The name had to sound good, look good and represent something good. I mean, imagine yourself being name something like ‘Chin Boh Eng’ or even ‘Gan Lina’. My deepest apologies to these people.

After going through thousands of names, I couldn’t find anything to my liking. I decided to give the thesaurus a shot. I looked up synonyms to the words ‘champion’ and finally decided on the name Ace because:

1. It sounds dashing and cool

2. It is short and easy to write

3. Me and hubby want him to grow up knowing that no matter what happens, he is the BEST if he only believes itAnd most importantly…

4. We want him to win at all the new casinos opening up in SG!

Ok, I was kidding about the casinos.

It is strange how different people react differently to this name. Some tell me it’s cool and sounds great! Mostly though, they say things like, “Isn’t that a difficult name to live up to?”

Yet another BREED of them like my sister are just concerned with finding funny things to say about the name. “Hiya, when he plays black jack sure will win ah! All he needs is an ah pek and he can put his face next to the card and say BLACK JACK! Sure win ah!” (I have taken note to let my son spend too much time with this crazy Ah Yee of his in future.)
And the elderly in my family like my My father in law? They are just concerned with the pronunciation of the name.

To give our son a better future, we refered to the ancient art of fengshui. Thus the Chinese name, Cai Yen Feng.

My husband likes it cos it sounds majestic in Chinese. Loosely translated to English, it means ‘strict and sharp’.

So will he end up strict and sharp? Will he Ace in every aspect of his life? I don’t know. It’s too early to tell.

But I think my role as a parent is to do my best to guide him along. The rest is REALLY up to him, don’t you agree?


What’s in MUMMY’S Name

My parents did not refer to fengshui when they named me. Somehow I must say that my name and the names I started to give myself along the way shaped me in one way or another too.

My parents never believed in English/Christian names. My mother, a devoted Buddhist says, “We are not Christians and we are Chinese. It is enough to have a Chinese name.”

I was born Peng Wan Joo. That’s the teochew dialect translation for the name Peng Yuanru. My name means ‘like a garden’. (That is why I pretty like a garden mah)

But when I was young, I was known as Joo Joo. Maybe because it sounds very similar to the Chinese word for pig, “ZHU’. I grew up be quite plump.

Sometimes, my dad would call me ‘Da Gua’ (loosely translated, that means Big Melon). And since melons are ROUND… I guess I still cant run from the fate of becoming plump. :)

In primary school, I was known as Yuanru a.k.a Yuan Ru Qiu (round like a ball) and my teachers often mispronounce the first word of my name and call me Wan Ru, which means ‘Round like a bowl’.

HOW TO BECOME SLIM I ASK YOU???

Then when I started working, I was known as ‘Wan Joo’. Whether I liked it or not, by then I was already a ‘zhu’. Was fluctuating from 70-75kg then and that is quite a fair bit of weight for my 165cm frame.

Inspired by a play that I watched, I started calling myself Verity whenever I went online because I liked the sound of this name. I found out later that it means “truth” so I kept using it as I am a sucker for truth and fairness. Somehow though, I just could never bring myself to make it my name.

Along the way, I managed to lose 15kg within 2 months (before after) and went through a turning point in my life. In bid to give myself a new start, I used the nickname my then boyfriend (now husband already lah) gave me as my NEW NAME and thus I am known as Angel every since.

How did I come to be known as Angel? Well, it is all very silly actually. We were then just friends and emailing each other. My husband’s name is Shi Xiong. The word ‘xiong’ sounds like the word for BEAR in Chinese. So my husband calls himself Bear.

There was once he signed off in his email to me as Ur Cute Little Bear and I was like.. purliss lah.. he is such a big tall guy and he is a CUTE LITTLE BEAR??? No way!

So I told him that if he is my cute little bear, I would be his sweet little Angel! And then the name stuck.

But true enough, ever since I had the name Angel, I guess I felt more Angelic and had better temper. Maybe it is also because of the fact that I became vegeterian and that I had gone thorough more in life to appreciate the people around me a little more. Why I even thought I looked prettier- JUST LIKE AN ANGEL!

I guess when you are called something many times.. it goes into your sub conscious mind and you just naturally live up to it..