English Names

Traditional Chinese do not give their children English names.  So most of us grow up with Chinese names, normally made out of 1 to 2 Chinese characters.  The lack of an English name means that it is not easy for English speakers to remember us because it is difficult to pronounce our names and therefore, most of us, normally starting from high school (or as and when we feel we needed one), we get ourselves our own English names.  Although it's become a trend now for parents to give their children English names at birth, some still don't do it or they would prefer for the children to choose, whether or not to have an English name, or if they choose to have one, they can choose their own...

In Malaysia, the English names are quite normal, Kelvin, Kevin, Stephanie, Cindy, Tracy, Danny, Jonathan, Joey, Vincent, Irene, Helen, Elaine, Catherine/Cathy/Katherine, Eric... If you shout out one of these names in a supermarket, you'd probably have a least half a dozen of ppl answering...

And then I got to Macau, now HK... I can't help but notice some of the very unique English names the younger ppl have here:


Basically, there are quite a few catagories...

There are the ambitious ones like Million(!), Handsome(!)...
Then stationary/instrument... Staple, Paper, Piano (there must be a flute somewhere, or a trumpet...), Yoyo (a very common girls' name in HK/Macau)...

Then food... Orange, Spaghetti (OMG), Honey (uh-hm, this is my cousin brother's English name)...
Weather... Windy, Rain, Sky...
Adjective...  Mainly, Aware, Fancy (could be a noun as well...@_@)

Characteristic...  Sinner (one of my x-colleague, Sin is his surname...), Ego (what can I say?), Freeman, Fairy, Baby, Honey (yes, it's my cousin brother)
Body parts... Fanny, Pinky...

Then there are some that I don't know how to catagorize...  Weko, Midco, Fifi, Ginny (drinkable or simply Italian?), Shirty (who turns out to be a fantastic wife, mother and friend), Mask (yup, MASK, not Mark)... hmm...

Some sound really funny and I'm sure you've come across quite a lot if you've been here long enough or met enough ppl.  But hey, there's no way to figure out what the younger (Gosh I feel soooooooo freaking old already!!) generation has in mind...