Re: OT naming customs

On Sunday, December 16, 2001, at 03:06 , Dan Jones wrote:

> J Y S Czhang escreva:
>> > Are you keeping up the tradition of naming each generation using the
>> >appropriate syllable in the family poem?
>>
>>     My father and my Mum's father amazingly had some unity over this
>> point
>> (cuz otherwise they practically rather had not even looked at each other,
>> much less speak to one another).
>>     My father allowed Gung-Gung to check and go over the Zhang/Chang
>> scrolls
>> and come up with all the Chinese names for me and my siblings based on
>> the
>> ancient family poem (me: _Yu-Sam_; my younger brother: _Yu-Sum_; my lil
>> sister: _Yu-Sing_)
>
> What's the "family poem?" It sounds interesting.
>
Source of names based on a poem.  I'm sure they have more details than I
do.  I'm told it's used in Korean families as well though if we have one I
haven't heard of it (but then, my father's grandfather was
illiterate--possibly a consequence of being a minor revolutionary against
the Japanese occupation, etc.--and we lost a ton of family records when my
mother's family fled south from the border near Manchuria after WWII).

> Also, what's the story behind people's names on the list? Are you named
> after family members, or otherwise??
>
I wish.  :-(  My sister and I have the same sibling/generation name [jun]
(she's [jungjVN] and I'm [junha]).  My sister's name is actually sort of
an oddity, because the [gjVN] comes from our father's name, [gjVNp_ho],
and ordinarily you wouldn't "repeat" part of a name so soon generationally,
  it's disrespectful (in contrast to the Juniors, II's, etc.).  Then again,
  the [p_ho] in my father's name is also highly nonstandard; I never
learned where he got it, but my dad is always having to correct people who
(trying to fit it into more common Korean name-syllables) attempt to
say/spell it [ho] or [bo] or whatever else.  We just seem to be screwed up
in the monikers department.  ^_^

If I ever have kids I would love to start a generation-poem, but I suspect
they're going to be condemned to Alberts, Josephs, and Jameses.  (Joke.
My fiance's family sports multiples of each in various first/middle name
combinations.  It gives me a headache to contemplate.  Then again, I don't
even know the names of my grandparents in Korean, it's just not something
that you say as a younger.)

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a
violent psychopath who knows where you live.--Martin Goldin

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