What’s with the name?

My parents never gave me an English name and when I hit the age of 10, I suddenly wanted one.

“Oh, don’t take that, it’s too common. Just like Steven or David (no offence), if you call out such names, 10 Stevens or 10 Davids will answer you”

That was my tuition teacher’s response when I told her I wanted to name myself Kelvin. I listened to her and decided otherwise. 2 years later, when I was 12, I had a dream, and in that dream; the teacher was marking attendance and she called out a name. No one answered. My friend sitting next to me gave me a nudge and said…

“Eh, cikgu panggil awak lah” (Eh, teacher is calling you)

I woke up from the dream almost immediately and that name became my English name since then. I will always tell this story to anyone who ask me how I got my name. Some chose not to believe, some found it strange, some started calling me “the man with a name from a dream”. No matter what, I am here to tell you… it’s true.

Yup, I do have a somewhat strange name. I never really use it until I went to the UK. But the as I entered the modern slavery kingdom, I gave my English name an official launch and everyone knows me by it since then. That’s me…

Now, I have noticed one very obvious trend with people lately. People here refer to parents with new born kids. Do you notice that more and more couples giving their newborn rather… glamorous name? Gone are the new Davids, Michaels, Johns (no offence again). None of my friends who are new parents name their child with “conventional” name. Currently, Ethan seems to be a hot name to give one’s newborn son. I personally know of 4 newly born Ethans. Other glamorous English name given includes Gabriel, Jayden, Aiden.

The baby girls are not losing out either. Gone are the Nancy(s), Wendy(s) and Mary(s). In fact, I have never known a single Mary in my life before. Some of my friends have named their baby girls Lauren, Isabelle and Megan. Quite glamorous indeed, don’t you think so?
One thing about baby girls though, the Chinese name “ann” seems to always appear in newborn nowadays. Gone are the leng, yeng, peng, ching… enters ‘ann’. There’s a multitude of li-ann(s), bee-ann(s), sze-ann(s), may-ann(s) and whatever ann(s). Are you one of those who are going to follow suit?

Our Malay comrades are not losing out either. While they cannot really take on an English name, they have creatively altered their spelling to make it more glamorous, mostly involved the letter ‘y’. Azyla instead of Azila… Dylaina instead of Dilaina… Adly instead of Adli. Again, no offence if you happen to bear such names.

Anyway, English name for Chinese has become almost a must nowadays, even if mandarin is spoken in such household. Oh no, I am not against it. But I am just curious what kind of glamorous names are going to surface in the new few years. Maybe in time to come, there will be no more David(s) and Michael(s) and when you call out the name Ethan, you will probably get 10 answers… it could happen.

So are you going to give your future child a glamorous name? One tip… if you really can't think of anymore glamorous name to make your child unique… perhaps you can sleep on it… who knows, your dream might just be fruitful.

P/S: Zewt apologises if the names above offended anyone.