Nomenclature

Startled. Then stunned. Then horrified.

I was all that, and more, when I discovered that there is, living on this same little island as I, another person who *gasp* has the same name as me. Lee, HANTING, Justin.

For close to 21 years, I've enjoyed the singular fortune of not having to meet anyone else with the same name as me. Ok, fine, there was this girl (4 years my senior) in RGS who was named Hanting too, but since that name was printed in a yearbook, I believe it's a typo, so it doesn't count. Hah.

Who doesn't want a unique name? People have increasingly found that unique names are better remembered by others, thus providing an added advantage in social or business circles. In fact, a Straits Times report carried this anecdote of this guy in the quarry business, who named his daughter Pebble and his son Rock (I wonder how much they hate their dad). In the same survey, they found more and more people giving themselves Christian names too, in an effort to be remembered better.

As for myself, even though "Hanting" is, or was, probably as unique a Chinese name as you can get (unlike names like Xiao Ming, which appears in thousands in Sentence Construction worksheets across the nation's schools), I began preparing long ago for this unfortunate eventuality, when pure chance would throw up another kid with my name. And that's where the problem begins.

Because, as you probably already well know, Christian names repeat too frequently. Think of... Ben. You have Benjamin Ang (aka Bang), Benjamin Koh (aka Ben Koh), Benjamin Tan (aka Ben). You have... Alex. Alex Ho (aka Alex), Alex Wee (aka Lex aka Worm). And we're not even counting all the Shauns, Kelvins, Adelines.

Every time I look in the mirror, I can't think of a Christian name that would suit myself, without infringing on another person's personality. Sylvester's too toned-down for me (ah see you are already thinking, is he talking about the Sim one or the Stallone one?), Brad's not macho enough, Vin Diesel makes me sound cheap. So taking on an existing name's out of the question for me.

Next, I tried try my hand at making a name for myself (no pun intended). For a while I thought I'll make myself sound like I'm a Honky, so maybe Cash Leong, or Money Leong. For a country that has citizens with names like Noodle Cheng, Toxic Pang and Fruit Chan, I thought I'd fit right in. But after violent protests from my fan club, I thought, ok, let's try more exotic, European-style names. Hence, Beelzebubbly, or maybe Quetzcoatly. Luciferous?

My Christian aunt promptly threw a fit. So that was the end of that.

Just before I gave up, I decided to go with the radical name *H(#&!. For those who don't know, it's pronounced "Crazy Sexy Cool With A Good Bod To Add", only said very, very fast. I gave it up soon though, because people kept mispronouncing it as *h)#&! (Crazydeludedpieceofshit).

So fare you well, Clark Hoo Swee Tiang. I'll stick around with Hanting for the time being. =)