What's in a name?

It’s heartening to know that Taufik Batisah and Hady Mirza stay true to their real names despite being in the glamour world of showbiz. But surprisingly some artistes that are managed by a Malay tv station has names changed from Khairul to Hyrul, and others from Iskandar to Eiss and Taufik to Taufique. Phonetically, the sounds are still the same but the alphabets depicted are more glamourous, no?

There goes again perhaps a case of identity crisis of the Malays, wanting to sound more westernized and glamourised than they should be. Even my own name, Maria, do not sound Malay but it has its roots in Islamic and Catholic origins. When I was in Europe, my name was so common that it became boring. Because every other European women you met, would have a name starting with Maria or know many more women with that name. However, on the positive side, they do not have problems pronouncing my name.

Some names are chosen, while others are created. Well, at least my son's name was chosen from ...not from some Islamic Baby Names Books, but the internet. There's just so much more choices from the internet than from the books. His chosen name is Muhammad Afzal simply because it has an excellent meaning, with its roots in Islam. It means the “most excellent”, and together with Muhammad, it means “the most honourable, most excellent”. And I hope he will grow up to be a fine young man. But it came to a point when grandparents think the name is too “heavy” for the child to carry. Especially when kids are prone to heavy crying and often falls sick, that’s when Malays feel that the names given to the child are not appropriate. It so happened that my husband is known by another name by his family members and relatives, which sounded a bit feminine. And if his actual name is mentioned, the relatives would be wondering whom we are talking about as they do not remember his real name. From what I heard, my husband’s maternal grandfather, in remembrance of a lost son, gave his real name to him. But his own father wanted a different name. So in respect, his official name was given by his maternal grandfather but his known to many by his other name given by his own father. Is that confusing? And to make matters more confusing, his three other adiks all have other names, and mind you, these are not nicknames.

In the old days, children are given names that may be detrimental to their own self-worth. For example, names like Buang, which literally means “throw” because so and so was abandoned by so and so parents and were picked up by another family. When the kids were picked up, they were called Pungot. Then there were others like Jantan, Comel, Comot, Kecil (but in terms of size, the person is far from kecil), Pendek, Panjang. And sometimes, they were given names of the week because they were born on Isnin or Senin, Khamis, Jumaat or Jumat, Sabtu, Ahad or Ahat. Names of months are not so popular except for the abbreviated June or Jun, and perhaps Syawal.

Created names may sound nice but sometimes do not hold any meaning. Others create their children's names by combining parts of the parents' names. Shahirina was born because of mom Shaemah, and dad Tahir. Then there are long names like Nurul Sajaa Rosshida Bte Mohd Rosli. This is still not long enough, and there are others much longer. Husband and I have decided that our kids’ names should not take too much time to write especially when it comes to exam papers. We also have western sounding names but with Islamic roots like Danial, Dayan and Matin, among others.

Hollywood celebrities can get away with wacky and weird names for their kids even calling them His Majesty or Police Inspektor. Sounds cheesey isn't it?

I wonder why a name was chosen and not others. So what’s in a name? Nice sounding and beautiful meaning? Glamourous or quirky? Or simply easy to remember.