Re: nightmare butchery of lastnames (was Re: Whiteness?)

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:

>Not surprisingly,
>their children were given names like Stefano and Caterina.  I believe that
>"Steve" Kim ended up at Cornell - he and his sister "Cathy" were friends
>of
>my family.
Interesting! Well, the bi-racial Korean kids usually had American names.
My friend Mary has her middle name as Korean - Chong (which is her
mother's maiden name). My brother's fiancee who is half Korean is named
Melodie, but her mother says it more like "merodie", and a friend of my
brother's was named "Suwada" (i'm not sure if that's Korean, but I think
it is) his sister on the other hand was named "Lavon". I think for the
bi-racial kids their mothers wanted them to fit in, especially since many
didnt look full Korean, and maybe they thought people would wonder.
Anyway....
>
>    I once met a fellow of Chinese ancestry who had been raised in
>Indonesia.  Apparently, during the time when he was born, the government
>had
>outlawed Chinese names (in an attempt to force the Chinese minority there
>to
>assimilate).  So his parents were forced to choose a non-Chinese name for
>him - and he was christened "David Williams."  I kid you not.
>-Chollie
My father's cousin's husband is a Chinese Filipino. His name is Reuben. I
think theyre totally Filipinized, and I dont think he speaks whatever
language his ancestors spoke. His surname is spelled interestingly: "See".
I've seen that name spelled also like "Sy".

Speaking of Filipinos, there tends to be no real "traditional" names among
Filipinos. My dad's cousin (mentioned above) sent us a family tree of my
grandfather's side. Some of the names are: Pablo, Diodina, Denominadora,
Esperanza, Kristofer, Karl, Norian, Nolissa, Rasalyn, Illuminada, Honorio,
Pepito, Hildegarda, Leodegario, Felicidad, Panfilo, Hershey (this is my
dad's cousin's daughter), Kevin, Rameses, Venice, Zeus, Ymir, Darius (the
mother of Zeus, Ymir, and Darius is "Cleopatra").

Filipinos tend to use any name, or even words that they like (like
"Hershey"). A lot of names are Spanish, but in the US, kids are being
named with American names like Melissa, Daniel, Dennis, etc...





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