Accents
By Julia Carreon-Lagoc

The name game

Do you know that my namesake Julia Roberts and I were born on the same date, Nov. 1? In Antioch, California, while watching TV with my grandson Rap-Rap (James Raphael), the host aired birthday greetings to Julia Roberts who, he said, was born on Nov. 1. Then and there I wanted to write the actress to let her know that what a coincidence for the two of us born on the same date and given the same name. Then, too, I remembered my late Nay Piedad (true to her name, one full of goodness and faithfulness) telling me that my long departed mother Cristeta (whose own name is a modified feminine version of you-know-who) got my name from an old almanac which shows Nov. 1 as the feast day of St. Julia. Julia Roberts' parents' must have gotten her name from the same source, the almanac where each day has a designated saint.

Corollary to this name game is an e-mail from a cousin in California who got it from The OBSERVER which I took to be either a US- or London-based Filipino newspaper. Titled A Rhose, by Any Other Name, it's a well-written piece by one Matthew Sutherland. Preceding the article is a note from the OBSERVER's Filipino editor: “… He [Sutherland] hopes to give us glimpses into our own culture by writing about all things Pinoy from an expat's point of view.”

Sutherland introduces his article with a biblical quote: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." (Proverbs 22:1) I find the quotation he has chosen inconsistent with the levity of his article because, well, name in the Bible refers to the depth, breadth and height the person has built of his character and reputation. Not the fancy, sexy, or bizarre connotations Sutherland finds in the names. Read on:

“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 has provided a continuing source of amazement and amusement ever since. The first unusual thing, from an English perspective, is that everyone here has a nickname. In the staid and boring United Kingdom, we have nicknames in kindergarten, but when we move into adulthood we tend, I am glad to say, to lose them. The second thing that struck me is that Philippine names for both girls and boys tend to be what we in the UK would regard as overbearingly cutesy for anyone over about five. ‘Fifty-five-year-olds with names that sound like five-year-olds', as one colleague put it. Where I come from, a boy with a nickname like Boy Blue or Honey Boy would be beaten to death at school by pre-adolescent bullies, and never make it to adulthood. So, probably, would girls with names like Babes, Lovely, Precious, Peachy or Apples. Yuk, ech ech. Here, however, no one bats an eyelid. [See, how much more tolerant we are and more imaginative than where writer Sutherland comes from.—JCL]

“Then I noticed how many people have what I have come to call ‘door-bell names'. These are nicknames that sound like - well, doorbells. 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 doorbell 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' is the best Tagalog equivalent.

“Repeating names was another novelty to me, having never before encountered people with names like Len-Len, Let-Let, Mai-Mai, or Ning-Ning. [Perhaps author Matthew Sutherland has not heard Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy calling their son JFK Jr. as John-John. My own grandchildren aside from Rap-Rap are Jet-Jet and In-In and sometimes Nik-Nik for Danika.—JCL] 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 had me very confused for a while. 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. [Indeed, why not? Rudy and I had our kids named Rose, Roderick, Randy, and Raileen.—JCL] 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. [The very accommodating young teller at Iloilo's Export Bank is Anmosel, a name so unique I had to ask him what it was a combination of. He said his grandfather is Anselmo and down the generations, syllables were reversed. Yours is a nice name, eh, Anmosel.—JCL] 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 (Jhun2)?

“There is also a whole separate field of name games -- those where the parents have exhibited a creative sense of humor on purpose. I once had my house in London painted by a Czechoslovakian decorator by the name of Peter Peter. I could never figure out if his parents had a fantastic sense of humor or no imagination at all -- it had to be one or the other. But here in the Philippines, wonderful imagination and humor is often applied to the naming process, particularly, it seems, in the Chinese community. My favourites include Bach Johann Sebastian; Edgar Allan Pe; Jonathan Livingston Sy; Magic Chiongson, Chica Go, 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 imagination and exoticism rule the world of names.

“…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 in the Philippines!” Thus Sutherland ends his perorations.

Sutherland should take hold of the book I mentioned in my previous column, Words at Play - Quips, Quirks & Oddities by O.V. Michaelsen. The unusual names Michaelsen has gathered are simply amazing and amusing you can't help but say, “Where else but in America!” Sample these: Constant Agony from Chazy Lake, New York; Dr. Carver, a surgeon in Bartlesville, Oklahoma; Lorraine Cocaine from Murrieta, California; and A. Moron from Randolph, New Jersey. There is the dangerous-sounding Dr. Hatchet and there are five Dr. Bonebrake that includes a dentist and a chiropractor. Groaner Digger is a Houston undertaker. Judge Law and Judge Judge are judges in Santa Ana, California. Unfortunately, there is a Judge Outlaw and a Judge Lawless, and an A. Swindler from Xenia, Ohio. What Pinoy oddities could beat those, eh, Mr. Sutherland? (Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)