(no subject)

[sballik.livejournal.com]

I was downtown today and there was a bus full of Asian people on tour of the city, and they were all wearing nametags.  
One man's name was Wang Hung.  

I wouldn't call myself ethnocentric at all, and I realize that names in Asian families are very different than in mine, but I still found it really funny and thought I'd share.



It also got me wondering about what my name might mean in other languages.  Does anyone know of a website that will tell you?

Comments

[adamantplatypus.livejournal.com]

There's a restaurant I drove by a ways from my house called Tan Wang.

I nearly went off the road.

[sballik.livejournal.com]

I've always gotten a bit of a chuckle out of the Ho Lee Chow restaurant chain, too. Maybe I am just ethnocentric... lol

[adamantplatypus.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAH! I like it.

[icebyrd67.livejournal.com]

i'm chinese and i still giggle. my favorite has always been wei hung. or Long wang. =P

[sballik.livejournal.com]

haha shut up! both of those kill Wang Hung!

[asoftskeleton.livejournal.com]

My BIL's first name is Dung. Common Vietnamese name, but since he moved to the US he has gone by Andy instead, haha.

[sballik.livejournal.com]

The man who owned the store across from my highschool was named Bong. Not as funny as Dung or Wang, but still hilarious when you're in highschool. Once he found out about the drug reference, he started going by Bob instead.

[rubytitania.livejournal.com]

A Chinese take-away near me used to be called Wan King.

[glitterberrys.livejournal.com]

There's a clothing place not far from me called Lucky Wang. I keep meaning to go take a picture.

A friend of mine sponsors kids and she's mentioned a few odd-seeming names she's spotted. Porn (Thailand), Nemrod (the Philippines) and Mehboob (India) come to mind.

[glitterberrys.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Lesbia, but I forget where she was from. South or Central America, I think.

[sballik.livejournal.com]

haha!

[lovebird.livejournal.com]

Lol this reminds me of the kid at my high school named Frank Willy Johnston. I probably wouldn't think anything of those names each by themselves but throw them all together and it's just wayyyy too much peen.

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

lmao!

[littlekitkin.livejournal.com]

my name is kara, which means "empty" in japanese. :| awesome.

[nandy-pandy.livejournal.com]

Try behindthename.com

I have an "international" family, so I'm keenly aware that some names are sweet and cute in Language A, but are horrible in Language B. Here are my overused, tired-out examples that I will never stop using.

1. Lesbia was a childhood friend's live-in nanny from somewhere in South America. My friend's mom, being an uptight bitch, gave her a new name because she refused to say Lesbia, and even told the woman that her name was "a bad word in English". The whole rename thing still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

2. An acquaintance of mine was dating a gal named Fea. In Spanish, this translates into "ugly" or "ugly girl/woman". I have used this poor gal's name a dozen times in this community as an example. :(

3. Tae. I don't know anybody named Tae, but I have seen it in magazines or online as people's names. It means shit/feces in Tagalog, or at least my mother's dialect. She also freaks out when people call each other "pookie" because it sounds like "pokik", which means "vagina".

If/When I ever end up with a bebe, you'd better believe I'm going to ask people if the name may possibly mean anything bad in another language. The last thing I'd want is for my kid to visit somewhere and get laughed at because their name means "I suck anus" in the native tongue.

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. My name sounds like the words for "I'm cold" in Hebrew, and I ended up at an elementary school where it was required to take Hebrew, and I got made fun of a lot, even though "I'm cold" is nothing compared to "vagina" or "feces".

[requiem-morrow.livejournal.com]

I'm a Lori....which isn't bad in the US, but try going to any country ever touched by the British...I have a picture of me standing next to a Lorry Parking Only sign and had to put up with the jokes about Lorry Drivers....

[ifancylust.livejournal.com]

my name is hana, which means flower or blossom in japanese. but it also means nose also. =/
my last name means bear's head. haha.