Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie Fourth Birthday tickers

Thursday, May 10, 2007

My Chinese Name

I've got a rather special thing to blog today. When I was googling for Keith's name and tried to search if there is anyone by the same name. Out of fun I google mine as well and you know what I found......? I found my friend :) Yup I found my friend by googling my name.

I think most of you realise that I have not been using my Chinese name since I started working, other than official matters. Not that I do not like my Chinese name nor is it hard to remember but rather I have had someone whom is sharing the same name as me........ in fact our name on our IC is totally identical

By the way we were born in the same year and took our SPM in the same year too. Best part of all is we were both from Penang too. You must be curious whom this person is right....... well the thing that made matter more complicated is that person is a female.

The name that we both shared is Chin Wai Boon

Funny thing is I really don't understand how our name could have been spelt the same manner.

  • Chin : I am Hakka and she is Cantonese but I dunno how we can share the same surname because normally Cantonese are "Chan"
  • Wai : This is the pinyin, since my mum is Cantonese
  • Boon : This is the Hokkien pinyin. Normally Cantonese would use "Man"/"Mun" instead

陳偉文 is my name in Chinese character
陳慧文 is Eliza's

As I didn't have any photo of her in hand, this is my prove that this person exist (for those whom doubt me)
In this Box is supposed to be a pic. Refresh or click here for a bigger pic


It is not something that happens everyday but I doubt you would like it to happen even once like my case.

Something happened about 15 years ago, Eliza lost her wallet and the founder called me instead of Eliza because she searched through her wallet for a contact number hoping to call the owner and she found a match between her IC name with a name in her phone book. The founder was shock to have a guy answering the call (me-lah) and I have to show her my IC to prove to her, when I went to pick up the wallet to return to Eliza, that I am in fact having the same name as the owner :P
The saddest thing is that I have lost contacts with many of my Penangite friends..... I did try to e-mail Eliza but I only got one reply inquiring whom am I then no more news. Sigh!

The only thing that gave us our difference was Eliza for her and Peter for me. Peter was what my mum used to call me since small, other than "Wai Mun". Peter is used more like a nickname to me. When I wanted to put my boy name Keith in his IC, just like my sis, Nicole and the rest, my in-laws gave me a very funny comment:
"What if he doesn't like the name Keith when he grows up?"

In fact I got this comment quite often too. It really made me feel uneasy. I don't want my boy to be Tom yesterday, Dick today and Harry tomorrow :rolleyes: And on a later part I dunno what is my boy's name because I am not updated :P Funny thing is children are given their names by their parents, right? Personally I think if they want to change any names...... Let it be their children's name that they change.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is funny how your inlaws commented about your son not liking his name. Do they question themselves when naming their children? I think all parents try to give their child the best possible name..unless they are very lazy and name their 1st born, Ah Yat, 2nd born, Ah Yee..etc.

Don't let their comment doubt your ability to give your children good names. FYI, Keith is one of my favorite name for boys. :)

Tutiger said...

Hahaaaa..... I can understand that, I even got suggested the name "Cho Chat" - meaning Seventh Lunar Day by my MIL :P

Perhaps they find Keith a little hard to pronounce.

Peridot&Sapphire said...

hahaha... i share my hinese name with lots of people and no doubt it's a female name with the ending of "Ling". So, you can imagine that. Even I didn't put a hristian name for en en in her birth cert but I do have a name for her, very unique one and I do hope she will like it when she's older.
BTW, before I settle with "Sharine", (I'm not Christian) I used to have many funny name like Julie, July,... I choose my own English name at the age of 12 and stick to this name ever since.

Anonymous said...

Hi Mr Peter,

I finally found you on this website..
Like you mentioned you have search for our name on the website. Now I really did find this blog of yours here.

I did reply your email more than 2 times but you didn't reply. That time I was trying to contact you to invite you to my wedding lunch but you never reply. I thought you were just trying to make sure I still exist.. Haha

I just knew about the lost wallet thing. Really?! Why I never heard of you mention it before?! So r u the one who sent me the old IC thru mail?! Wow! After 15years of mystery yah?!!

So you have married with kids lah?!
Hope we can contact soon. Email as old no change..

Take Care!!
From Eliza