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It first appeared,
if I recall right, in the Guardian some years back. Enjoy a respite from the likes
of Erap, Ping et al - JLM)
"A
good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." - (Proverbs 22:1)
When
I arrived in the Philippines from the UK six years ago, one of the first cultural
differences to strike me was names. The subject provided a continuing source of
amazement ever since.
The
first unusual thing, from an English perspective, is that everyone here has a
nickname. In the staid and boring UK, we have nicknames in kindergarten. But when
we move into adulthood we tend, I'm glad to say, to lose them.
The
second thing is Philippine names, for both girls and boys, tend to be what we
in the UK would regard as 'cutesy' for anyone over about five. "Fifty-five-year-olds
with names that sound like five-year-olds", as a colleague put it.
Where
I come from, a boy with a nickname like Honey Boy would be beaten to death at
school by pre-adolescent bullies. So, probably, would girls with names like Babes,
Lovely, Precious, Peachy or Apples. Yuk. Here, however, no one bats an eyelid.
Then
I noticed many people have what I have come to call "door-bell names".
These are nicknames that sound like - well, door-bells. There are millions of
them. Bing, Bong, Ding, and Dong are some of the more common.
They
can be, and frequently are, used in even more door-bell-like combinations such
as Bing-Bong, Ding-Dong, Ting-Ting, and so on. Even our newly-appointed chief
of police has a doorbell name - Ping.
None
of these door-bell names exist where I come from, and hence sound unusually amusing
to my untutored foreign ear. Someone once told me that one of the Bings, when
asked why he was called Bing, replied "because my brother is called Bong."
Faultless
logic.
Dong,
of course, is a particularly funny one for me, as where I come from "dong"
is a slang word for… well, perhaps "talong" (eggplant) is the best
Tagalog equivalent.
Repeating
names was another novelty. I've never before encountered people with names like
Len-Len, Let-Let, Mai-Mai, or Ning-Ning. The secretary I inherited on my arrival
had an unusual one: Leck-Leck. Such names are then frequently further refined
by using the "squared" symbol, as in Len2 or Mai2. This confused me
for a while.
There's
a 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 (for 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). Between you and me, I'm glad I'm not.
And
how could I forget to mention the fabulous concept of the randomly-inserted letter
'h.' Quite what this device is supposed to achieve, I have not yet figured out,
but I think it is designed to give a touch of class to an otherwise only averagely
weird name. It
results in creations like Jhun, Lhenn, Ghemma, and Jhimmy. Or how about Jhun-Jhun?
Here
in the Philippines, wonderful imagination and humor is applied to the naming process,
specially in the Chinese community.
My
favourites include: Bach Johann Sebastian, Edgar Allan Pe, Jonathan Livingston
Sy, and my girlfriend's very own sister, Van Go. I am assured these are real people,
although I've only met two of them. I hope they don't mind being mentioned here.
How
boring to come from a country like the UK full of people with names like John
Smith. How wonderful to come from a country where exoticism rule the world of
names.
My
favorite is the unbelievably-named town of Sexmoan (ironically close to Olongapo
and Angeles). Could that really be true?
Where
else in the world could the head of the Church really be called Cardinal Sin?
Where
else in the world could Angel, Gigi and Mandy be grown-up men? Where else could
you go through adult life unembarrassed and unassailed with a name like Mosquito,
or Pepper, or Honey Boy?
Where
else but the Philippines!"
(E-mail:
juan_mercado@boholchronicle.com) | 
