My good friends, a couple are expecting their first baby, a girl soon. I’m not sure if they’ve settled on a name yet.
See, choosing a Chinese name is very tricky. Why? Let’s break it down. The average Malaysian Chinese name has 4 words or names – 3 Chinese words and 1 English. Like Lilian Tan Ah Lian (if you haven’t figured it out yet, ‘Lilian’ here is, surprisingly the English name).
You can give your kid 6 English names and one Chinese, e.g. Charlie Peter Alfonso Albuquerque Giuseppe McDonald Chua, but the poor sod will probably get beaten up a lot in the school playground.
Anyway, back to the standard 1 + 3 name. The surname is mostly non-negotiable, unless you want to give the grandparents a premature heartattack. In some families, the last 2 Chinese names are sometimes pre-selected in some ancient book written by some forefather 1600 years ago back in Shandong Hill. For others, you can whatever name you want.
But a few tips in selecting Chinese names, for the uninitiated:
- Make sure it doesn’t sound like some vulgarity, embarrassing body part or swear word in every Chinese dialect known in Malaysia. And English and BM, too.
- You might also avoid names like Ai Ken Fatt and Soh Ken Ai.
- Repetitive or rhyming names were quite popular some time back with some people, but a little less common these days, like Tan Ching Ching, or Tee Mee Mee. I’ve heard of a Lily Lee Li Li.
Let me just stop at three before I get spam comments on this. Next – how to avoid English names like Valentino Tan or Zidane Wong. Stay tuned.
[tags]baby names, baby, names, Chinese, Malaysia[/tags]
12 Comments
pelf
The 1+3 name is popular, no doubt, but it would be better if it’s arranged 3+1, otherwise when your kid goes to some Western country for his education, the Westerners will address the surname wrongly =) Which will in turn, give you a premature heart attack =)
ponytales
Ha! Ha! Ha! Must u use ‘Alfonso Albuquerque’!? “M” state is nice kan? Got tapau chic rice ball for us?
I am starting to get numb with selecting baby names liao…gonna go into cin cai mode…
Pat
Too early for us to seriously think about it yet, but the other night while stuck in a jam, we speculated on the possible English names.
Most of the time we were trying to avoid names that are hard to pronounce for the grandparents! One of my sister-in-law’s kid is Carol but ended being called “Ka Loo” by the grandparents 😛
Since ours will be due a bit later than the rest of the “gang”, we also have to try avoid names that have been chosen 🙂
mott
AVOID AT ALL COST
1. wee wee wee,
2. Hi-wei, Free-wei, See-wei, (yini samyvellu geng!)
3. Fruity names..
4. Singers (beyonce, shakira, madonna, lobo)
don’t make the child an easy bully victim…;-)
Ken
I have a friend called Tan Yong Shite… hopw he doesnt read this blog… :p
S-Kay
I know a dentist by the name of Tan Si Hang
Bulu
hey, ur treading on thin waters ……. esp the Valentino part..
lucia
just imagine if my parents were to give me the name ‘chi peng’, it would be ‘lai chi peng’ (in hokkien it means ‘come here’).
there was once a much forwarded email on ‘names not to give to your child’ suggesting all the names that combined will give embarrassment or just doesn’t sound good.
simon
pelf – i think westerners mistaking the surname is quite common, not a big deal. same as how we mispronounce their complicated names!
ponytales – mmm… it was nice, but i wrote this b4 i left for holiday.
pat – eh, i thot if its a girl, the name has been chosen since many years ago…?
mott – i always thot shakira sounded very much like a malay girls name.
ken – i hope so too!
s-kay – are you sure he was a dentist? 🙂
bulu – well, the chances of him reading this would be pretty slim…
lucia – chi peng would still be better than ‘chin peng’!
born in '77
Here’s one I remember; If your surname is Chan, don’t use the English name Paul.
Ken Wong
Hi all i recently got a new born myself. I have been wondering how many of you actually use “Pat Chi” to determine the name of your kid. I heard they calculate the “stoke” of the wanted name against the “pat chi” their parent.
Baby Name Book
If Part 1 is to baby name book, then what would the reciprocal of that thought be????