The Sassy Lawyer recently trackbacked to a long discussion we're having on my blog on names and nicknames -- okay, my family's names and nicknames.
I have no theories about those cutesy Pinoy nicknames; much has already been written (usually by expats, tourists and P.J. O'Rourke) about the "weirdness" of full-grown adults with names like Baby, Girlie, Boy, Bhoy, Sonny and so on. Let me set them outsiders straight: it is not weird; all the infantilizing is in their heads. Some folks may be tempted to see it as laying an odd claim to the glamour/grammar of English, and that might be true. (Though I did grew up with Cherry Pies and Sugar Pies and Honeybees -- and a male college classmate actually named Cookie Macapanpan (first Google hit!) -- and it does sound somewhat painful.)
I'm a little more interested in the whole host of Juniors and the Thirds (and by implication, Juns and Jun-Juns) -- a failure of imagination, or some vestigial (or obvious) act of patriarchy? And what about those themed names? And those one-letter names (Romeo, Ramon, Rodel, etc., or -- hee hee -- Leny and Lily)? Are they ways of unifying siblings further through the magic bond of letters, or a gesture toward reproductive seriality?
I've always kind of liked -- though not, when it came down to it, for our daughter Izzy -- those remixed names. Thus, Rene and Ellie would have a daughter named Renel -- or Renelle, Ranelle, Rhanelle, Rhenelle, etc. It seemed to me to be a kind of rebellion against "standard" orthography and "standard" forms of naming, though it's difficult to spell over the phone.
(Just by utter coincidence, there's a thread on this very topic going on on Orkut -- are any of you readers on this? It actually seems cooler than Friendster.)
bhoy do i have a filipino names poem for you. maybe will post it on my blog sometime soon...
Posted by: bjpr on March 8, 2004 11:49 PMnames of some former students of mine:
delfin demosthenes dimayacyac
anacleto badoy
and here's one name of a capampangan poet:
lord byron pabalan
also, what's up with naming filipino boys Vladimir, Voltaire and BEN HUR????
Posted by: onejap on March 9, 2004 09:54 PM naks! hanep sa pikchoor! for me naman in fairness, i will try not to name my kids, babylyn, or junior.
one of the owrst names i've encounteed so far, is my one of mt students. she is unfortunately a victim of combined names. her name : lilybert magpantay.
bangis!
siyempre yung unforgettables:
Edgar Allan Pe (a college batch mate) at Washington Dy Sy.
I think one theory of having a lot of Tito Boys and Auntie Girlie (at least for my dad's generation) is how the new born babies were haphazardly registered. Kung sa ospital pa lang eh Baby Boy de la Cruz o Baby Girl de la Cruz yung temporary name, eh yun na yung naisusulat sa birth certificate.
I could share a story with you which involved such a scenario and a drunk tito but my wife would kill me. ;)
(then again there's that American soldier about to go to the Iraq War II who had his name legally changed to Optimus Prime...)
Posted by: Markmomukhamo on March 10, 2004 06:10 PMI had a high school classmate named Michael Warren Bite -- Michael was fine, but being named Warren Bite (remember, "Beatty" was pronounced "Bi-ti" in the Philippines) must have been difficult.
But not as difficult as "Lilybert." Nge!
Mark, ano ka ba? What's the story?
Sorry I stumbled in late, pero pasingit na rin.
The affluent Chinoys got into the practice of picking names of famouus people as their kids' Christian names, hence: Hans Christian Lim and George Washinton Cu (real people, I swear) This practice was lampooned in the TV show "Kaluskos Musmos".
Ok.. i'm not really into this blog thing and just stumbled on your page but i'd like to say that naming "juns and juns-juns for the next and next-next generation" is pretty common but I had a classmate in highschool that was Josephine II and her sister who was my sister's classmate was Josephine III. Now talk about imagination or the lack of it!!! or maybe they really planned on having a BIG family and thought it would have been easier to remember them by Uno Dos Tres etc... hehehe...well, then at least their nicknames could make up for their boring names!!! oops.. not the Josephines but on I II III, okay???
Posted by: beth on March 28, 2004 12:12 AM