I was talking with my sister through skype a while ago and we were talking about some stuffs. We were talking about the sequential laboring of some friends and relatives and some acquaintances. DOn't know what happened but our topic suddenly shifted to baby names, probably because a lot of my Filipino-CHinese colleagues etc. are starting shift to fatherhood/motherhood. They're cute little Chinese babies, with their innocent looking faces posted on facebook with their excited smiley parents proud to show off their newly born babies. But there's something i noticed about these cute new generation of babies: Their names.
I noticed that most of the babies being born from parents' of my generation of chinoys have "rapper" names. You know names derived from african-american names. Names similar to: "shaniqua" "Aaliyah" "Tayshaun" "Kemisha" "Jermaine" etc. and etc. and etc. (really don't know what's with the "sha") I mean what were they thinking on giving their babies' names from rappers? You know I've thought about this before, and knowing I started creating some theories why these conservative, "creative and cool" parents name their kids this way:
Theory 1: The parents of these Parents (meaning the grandfather of the babies) are lazy enough or rather doesn't want to spend much time thinking about their kids' name while waiting in the hospital while they're worrying about their store/shop. And so in effect these parents grew up having common names like Michael , Bryan, Mark, Michelle, Christine, Joana, or Jennifer. And they don't want their kids to have these same names again.
Theory 2: Even though they're already parents, they still want the feeling of people thinking them as cool. And so when we say "cool"it must be a rapper! And so they want their other rapper parents to tell them : "Hey you're cool 'coz your child's name is cool!"
Theory 3: Many of those parents wanted to look smart and creative, and so they overdone the names of their child that they ended up with a rapper like name. sample Jayson = Jayshaun, or Sheena = Sheeniqua, or probably Beth = Betheesha. Anyway these are just mock samples.
My sister and I were laughing about the idea of going overboard about these names. Yeah that's right I mean if you want to give your kid a rapperish name then give it all the way man. I was thinking why not derived the babies' names from one of our popular R & B artists. You know give him/her a name like:
"P.Diddy LLCoolJ Wu", or
"50-cent ICeTea To" or
"SouljaBoi Lim" or
"Lil'Wayne Wang" or
"Ashanti Rihanna Pempengco (This is a wierd sample). Or
"Apl Akon Ang" or
"Sisqo Co" or
"Neyo Yu" or
"WuTangClan Tan"
By the way some these names rhyme too huh? yeah.
My conclusion: I hope these kids would grow up happy about their names. I'll be a good good boi and not judge their name giving prowess anymore. I just hope that they would appreciate their parents' effort of giving them a cool name. I also understand their reasons that they only want the best for their kids, they want them to be "in" as soon as they start mingling with other kids. We can't blame them for choosing a name from something they love. Maybe someday when I have a child there's a chance I would name him/her "Jean-Luc Lorenos" or "Maya Deren Lorenos" or "Theodoros Lorenos" (now this sounds really greek) ANyway as long as they're happy I'll be happy. I'm just a plain observes that's all. A rapper's peace sign to all the babies out there and me saying "Waz up y'all"!! Happy Fathers day to everyone.
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