My name

In lieu of anything interesting to write recently and I have some free time, I decided to share with everyone the history of my name, or names, as I have a lot of names.

Long before I was born, in fact, before any of my brothers were born too, my parents were just married(or maybe they were not married yet but were getting married soon, not too sure of the details) and had no children yet. My paternal grandfather just happened to pass away at that time. My father, being the oldest son of the family, had to carve down his children’s names on my grandfather’s tombstone(what kind of culture or tradition is that??). Since no actual children were had at that time, my father just came up with a boy’s name and a girl’s name. Now, it also happens that on this day of name carving, my mum was not present and so the names were decided upon by my dad. My dad was English-educated and not very good with Chinese and lo and behold, he came up with 郑春发 for the boy’s name and 郑玲玲 for the girl’s name.

Some time later, my mum got pregnant and gave birth to my oldest brother. Now, my mum wants to name her children herself. She decided to give my brother the name of 郑伟祺. This, translated into English, earned my oldest brother the name of Wekie. However, out of respect for the elders, the name on the tombstone still has to be used, so on the birth certificate of my oldest brother, in English, his name is Tay Choon Huat, Wekie. The Chinese characters written, however, was 郑伟祺 and not 郑春发. When my oldest brother started school, he finds 郑春发 too ‘obiang’ and he used 郑伟祺 as his official Chinese name. This leads to a lot of questions to him as the Chinese and English doesn’t fit.

Next, came my second brother. As he’s not a girl, he can’t possibly use 郑玲玲. My mum decided to follow from my oldest brother’s name and named my second brother 郑伟利. This is again translated into English and my second brother got the name of Willy. So, my second brother is conveniently named Tay Willy, Chinese character 郑伟利. He doesn’t have any problems in using what Chinese names but he doesn’t have a Chinese name in English, if you know what I mean.

Next came me. Thank the Lord it’s a girl and my parents are able to use the girl’s name on the tombstone and so I was named Tay Ling Ling. Again, my mum wanted to name me herself and also to carry on from what my brothers were named, I was given a Chinese name of 郑玮妮. This was translated into Winnie. So, on my birth certificate, like my oldest brother, I was given the English name of Tay Ling Ling, Winnie and Chinese character 郑玮妮.

Now, why wasn’t I, like my oldest brother, using 郑玮妮 when I started school? There’s two reasons for this. One, my mum feels that 玲玲 doesn’t sound as bad as 春发. Two, my mum feels that 玲玲 is easier to learn to write than 玮妮. So, when I was learning to write my name in kindergarten, she taught me to write 玲玲 instead of 玮妮, so the name stuck. When I got older and understood this story, I felt that 玮妮 is a more unique name and wanted to use it but by then, all my certificates and important things are using 玲玲, so it’s too late to change.

From this story, you can see that parents play a big part in what their children are named. My brothers and me have been shaped so much by my parents, even in such a simple thing as a name. Parents! Take note what you teach your children and what you name them!