THE NAME GAME 3

In the mad rush to Christmas and the end of 2007, let’s take a holiday from business, numbers, and accounting.

How do you account for the names parents give their children?

http://www.taxgirl.com/thank-god-its-friday/ got me to dig up an email I received a few months back on the funny / weird name games Filipinos play.

A RHOSE, BY ANY OTHER NAME (continued)
by Matthew Sutherland

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches” –(Proverbs 22:1)

Then there is the trend for parents to stick to a theme when naming
their children. This can be as simple as making them all begin with
the same letter, as in Jun, Jimmy, Janice, and Joy. More
imaginative parents shoot for more sophisticated forms of assonance
or rhyme, as in Biboy, Boboy, Buboy, Baboy (notice the names get
worse the more kids there are-best to be born early or you could end
up being a Baboy).

Even better, parents can create whole families of, say, desserts
(Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Honey Pie) or flowers (Rose, Daffodil,Tulip)
. The main advantage of such combinations is that they look great
painted across your trunk if you’re a cab driver. That’s another
thing I’d never seen before coming to Manila – taxis with the
driver’s kids’ names on the trunk. Another whole eye-opening field
for the foreign visitor is the phenomenon of the “composite” name.
This includes names like Jejomar Jesus, Joseph and Mary), and the
remarkable Luzviminda (for Luzon,Visayas and Mindanao, believe it or
not). That’s a bit like me being called something like “Engscowani”
(for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

More in the next post . . . . . . . .