Best sibset ever.

[seksimaggie.livejournal.com]

So the last post reminded me of an Asian family that I know.

Originally I knew my friend "Xeng", pronounced about like "Sang". (It's actually spelt "Xeev" on his birth certificate, I'm not sure about why.)

And his last name is Yang, so his name, Xeng Yang, rhymes.

Then I met his sister Peng. This, too, rhymes with Yang.

That made me curious, if maybe he had other siblings with interesting names, so I asked him about his family.

His oldest brother, born before the family imigrated from Thailand, is legally named Weng (rhymes with Yang), but then when they moved here of course he got teased, so he goes by the nickname Meng (also rhymes).

The rest of his siblings (it's a big family) were born after the move, so the parents decided to give them "American" names. They are Jack, Jason, Julie, and Linda.

Then, years later and unexpectedly, Xeng came along, and by then they'd gotten over their idea of "American" names and wanted to give the baby a name from their culture instead, hence, Xeng. Then a couple years later they had Peng.

So the family is Meng (Weng), Jack, Jason, Julie, Linda, Xeng, and Peng Yang.

*I'm not trying to make fun of other cultures here, I want to be clear on that, I just think this is a fun sibset and thought I'd share the story.

Comments

[emtotherescuee.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's actually really interesting.

[quite-rosie.livejournal.com]

That is interesting that they did some names from their orignal culture and some mixed.

All of the "_eng" kids have their name partners. All of the J kids have theis...

Poor Linda!

[twitchywoman.livejournal.com]

I ran across someone named Peng yesterday at work. The weird thing was that the person's last name was a common -son name.

[nandy-pandy.livejournal.com]

Xeev is pronounced "Sang"; maybe Xeng was just an alternative spelling for ease of use?

I'm the only one in my family with a traditional name in this generation. I'm glad I missed that boat!

[wowthatisminty.livejournal.com]

Interesting spelling, Xeev, is that a Hmong name?

[seksimaggie.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[seksimaggie.livejournal.com]

I saw his driver's license once and that's when I noticed it. I guess Xeng is just kind of closer to being phonetic for English, so he spells it that way.

[requiem-morrow.livejournal.com]

I went to school with a girl named Ping-Sha, who went by Pansy.

I had two clients once who were cousins. Because they were juveniles I can't explain the whole story, but they pronounced their last names differently. One was pn Boo (Bui) and the other was pn Boo-ee (Bui). Always thought that was interesting.

[ifancylust.livejournal.com]

i've known a lot of asian families who have their asian birth names and then their "american" names. maybe it's a coincidence, but i've noticed that a lot of asian girls i have come across have been named linda or grace.

[krosp.livejournal.com]

My husband is Asian... he has a chinese name... although his chinese given name is two characters, he just goes by the first one because it's easier to pronounce for Australians. But then it rhymes with his surname, so people always comment on how his name rhymes.

His sister has an English name, and all four of the family members have the same first letter of their name - the parents actually limited their choices for both their kids' names because they wanted them to start with the same letter as theirs. Personally, I would if anything avoid that, for confusion with the initials! But the more I thought about it, I realised that heaps of other Asian families I knew did similar "matchy" things... for example, Shaun, Shane and Sharon... and Kevin, Devin and Alvin. I just thought it was some weird cultural trend, but then thinking about it I realised that it's probably got to do with the fact that in Chinese names, they all do match normally. Chinese names are three characters - the family name, the generation name, and then the given name. So for example, if someone is called Chan Ai Ling, then her whole family has the last name of Chan (same as our surnames) - but "Ai", every girl who is her sister or female cousin from the same generation, will also have a given name starting with "Ai", and then the third character is the one that distinguishes them as the individual. So I think that maybe all these Asian parents that I know of, are trying to keep that linkage between the siblings' names that they would have if they had named them with Chinese names.

That's my theory anyway!

[seksimaggie.livejournal.com]

Another friend of mine's mother is from Korea, and she was telling me about how her mom and all of her siblings have the same last syllable on their name because it's traditional (either in Korean culture, or just her family, I'm not sure). So after the mother moved to America and married an American man, she wanted to give her kids American names, but then in keeping with her tradition they all end in the same sound, so they're Vicky, Shelly, and Connie. But they're not Victoria, Michelle, and Constance, though, those are their proper names.

Also, Connie's mom can't pronounce the V sound because I guess it doesn't exist in the Korean language, but she still named her oldest daughter Vicky, and just pronounces it "Bicky". I thought that was interesting too.

[herpickleness.livejournal.com]

I knew a girl named tam-wong in school. by the time we got into high school she went by tammy or tam.