What's in a Name?

"People's fates are simplified by their names."

Elias Canetti 

In the first year of medical school, I learned every name there is for every part of my physical body, and the names of every bit of physiological sorcery that keeps me alive. In my second year, I learned the names of the legions of diseases that physicians have demystified from the darkness of ignorance, the names of the microbial demons that plague us unseen and the names of the chemical weaponry we harness to subdue them. If you are ill, I will find out the secret name of what ails you, and with that name comes its nature, and more crucially its weaknesses. There is power in names, and there is mastery in their knowledge. This is one of the primary reasons I chose Galen's burden as a profession: I wanted to know them. I wanted to gain intimate ownership of my own mortal vessel. I wanted to know the names of Death so I will not fear it.

Okay, that's enough purple-coloured grandstanding for one day.

Thing is, names are a big deal to me, so when the time comes to naming my firstborn son, I spare a great deal of thought on it. Being ethnically Chinese but having no knowledge of the written Chinese language proved to be a colossal handicap so I decided to give the kid an English name, the language my thoughts are written in, because it is the only meaningful way I can participate in shaping his name. Meanwhile, the task of coming up with the Chinese parts of his name was taken up by my wife.

Before my marriage, before I even embarked on this footpath to fatherhood (and in fact, long before I even decided that I wanted a child), I have identified the criteria by which to guide me in this task of naming - and possibly deciding the fate - of the newly-born. Some are arbitrary and some are sensible. They are as follow,

1. It must not be the name of someone I personally know or one that is too common. I don't want them thinking that I named my kid after them, or even give them enough fuel to insinuate such a thing. Also, I don't want common names because they are unimaginative, unoriginal and undistinguished. John? Which John? Even my given name (the last two words of my three-word name) is pretty common for those that have the same surname I do. On my first day of college, I actually turned up in the wrong class after reading the rosters, realising it only when both of us raised our hands during roll call. I had to sprint across campus to get to the class I was suppose to be in.
2. It must be meaningful. It can be the name of someone I admire or it can be a name that holds personal significance to me. It can also have a meaning hidden behind its root language - what that language is is immaterial to me. They are fun conversation trivia, if nothing else. My name means "the outer part (of a city) attains greatness", I think.
3. It must not have religious connotations or origins. Both my wife and I are atheists so naturally, names that came from a holy book, names of gods and names with religious significance (e.g. Abdullah which means "God's servant" or Immanuel which says "God is with us") are ironic and inappropriate. Besides, the sheer volume of people having names such as Muhammad, Peter, Isaac, Timothy and Paul really makes clichés out of them, violating my first criterion as well.
4. It must be a real name, not rare, and aren't a real name spelled weirdly. I don't want to make one up from scratch and have my child be the only person ever to have that name (no matter what delusions of uniqueness I may harbour for him), and I don't want it to be too obscure or too flashy either. There are studies which showed that having an uncommon name (the so-called ghetto names like Shaniqua, Laquisha or Beyoncé) are correlated with juvenile delinquency but that could simply be because of poor socioeconomic status being predictive for both ghetto names and bad behaviour. Other studies found that having unusual or "black" names is correlated with poor grades in school while siblings of said unfortunately named children that have more conventional names did better, suggesting that the names themselves have predictive power aside from their association with socioeconomic factors. Common names with a "clever" deviant spelling (like Peter being spelled Petyr) is correlated with slowed spelling and reading capabilities. Boys given traditionally girly names like Alexis, Courtney and Kelly are found to display disruptive behaviour and have serious disciplinary issues. While I don't want dirt common names as per criterion one, I am certainly looking for a name that is instantly recognisable.
5. It must roll off the tongue easily. Because if it's hard to call a person by it, then it is not doing a good job as a name. So names like Siobhan, Saoirse and Niamh won't make my list. I don't want names with too many syllables (more than three) like Nathaniel, Elizabeth, Horatio or Alexander either, even if they have simple diminutives.

An unspoken 6th criterion is that I must like it (though that goes without saying). After testing out hundreds of names against my criteria, I finally settled on one that fulfills everything I want in a name for my son. I initially meant to keep it provisionally, thinking that I'll think of a better one over time but I never did. In the meantime, Cheryl and I started addressing her belly using that name. Now, we can't imagine our kid having any other.

In the meantime, you can try to guess what it is. Just for fun, what names do you know that would pass my 5-point baby name screening checklist? How many names do you know that are meaningful, have no association with religion, is uncommon yet not too common, instantly recognisable, easily pronounceable and spelled conventionally?



P.S. Having worked almost two years here in Sarawak, I noticed that Iban and Bidayuh parents have a tendency to give very unusual names to their progenies. I know a nurse called Javelin and another called Swayze Patrick (her dad was a fan of Dirty Dancing). I'd name some of my patients but I don't think I'm allowed to make fun of them like that. They certainly paid heed to criterion one while gleefully violating criteria two to five in every orifice imaginable.

A proper noun,

k0k s3n w4i