12 October 2011, by Tan Yi Lin
Much Ado About Naming
Everybody knows how Colette got her name.
What not everyone knows is the meaning and origin of the name ‘Colette’ (yes, not even her own father – because he just asked me what it meant the other day) and her parents’ thought process behind choosing the best possible name for their first born.
Colette: Definition
Colette is a derivative or shortening of ‘Nicholas’ or ‘Nicolette’. It means ‘victory of the people’.
Colette: Origin
The name Colette (and also Nicholas, Nicolette, Nicola, Nicole, etc.) is of French and Greek origin. In Greek mythology, Nike was a goddess who personified victory, and she was known as the Winged Goddess of Victory. Legend has it that Nike flew around the battlefields rewarding victors with glory and fame. And yes, Nike is also a popular brand of sporting shoes (but that’s not the point here.) Colette and its various versions were derived from nike (meaning ‘victory’) and laos (meaning people).
Personally, the meaning and origin of the name Colette struck a chord in my heart, because given our convoluted passage to parenthood, her arrival really was a blessed victory in our battle against infertility. For her, managing to survive the embryo-freezing process and being able to hang on tight inside me and blossoming into the beautiful little baby today, is a huge victory itself already.
The Name Selection Process
Once again, we all know that if Colette had turned out to be a boy, he would have been named Cho Bi Wan Kenobi, as inspired by the great Jedi master Obiwan Kenobi, and deemed the most beautiful name in the world by his dad (and possibly, only his dad.) In fact, he was affectionately calling the baby Kenobi throughout the pregnancy, right up to the day that the 20th-week ultrasound scan revealed that his little padawan didn’t have a weenie.
Unfortunately, the only female Star Wars-inspired option was Cho Becca, which conjured up horrendous visions of a hairy female wookie in my mind. Given that I was suffering from intense heartburn throughout my first trimester and already horrified by the old wives’ tale that bad heartburn meant that I was having a hairy baby (she did turn out to have lots of hair – but only on her head, thank goodness), Cho Becca was a no-go right away. And no, he didn’t want to simply name her Leia Cho because, that’s terribly unimaginative and un-clever for a Star Wars fan, isn’t it? Pffft.
We considered certain naming parameters in picking a name for our baby, which she would be stuck with for pretty much her entire life. The perfect name had to be:
1. Unpopular
The name didn’t have to be unique, but we didn’t want a name that was overly popular with parents at the moment. I had seen enough Facebook albums dedicated to little Aidan, Brayden, Cayden, Jayden, Kayla, Sophie, etc. in the recent months. I did a quick search on Colette – its popularity peaked in the USA in 1960 and it is currently not listed in the Top 100 Most Popular Names. Perfect!
2. Unfussy
I prefer names with either one or two syllables. Nicolette sounded very pretty, but a tad too fussy for our liking. Unfortunately, simple names are all the rage now, think Ian, Eva, Maya and the ever-popular Sophie. Imagine if there were two ‘Sophie’s in class and my daughter happened to be the bigger one, she would be called Big Sophie for a good part of her school-going life. Now what good would that do for her self-esteem?
So we decided to buck the trend and go with something slightly more dressy but uncomplicated nevertheless.
3. Pronounceable
By this, I don’t mean pronounceable by the general English-speaking crowd – it had to be capable of being correctly pronounced by the Singaporean on the street. I thought names like Lara and Lila had a simple elegance, but I didn’t want my older relatives calling her “Lala” or “Leela”.
With Colette, I anticipated that we would have people calling her “Collect” or “Kaw-let” – and it has happened (but of course) – but that, I can live with.
4. Spell-able
I think it makes things difficult for kids when parents purposely twist the traditional spelling of a name just so that their kid can have a special name e.g. Kollette, Johnn, Wendi, Vincens, Jaysen. Then there are those mix-and-match names (which are SO unique that I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head) – kudos to the parents for being creative, but it’s just not us.
Having my name being constantly misspelled (Yiling, Eeling, Yee Lin, Eileen, etc.) is a pain. Dannie is a fellow sufferer of inconsiderate spellers, having been addressed as Danny, Daniel, Denny and even Denial (?!?!?) to this day. In fact, so sick are we of having our names misspelled for the past 30 years that we wished our friend Mandy’s baby, Cristan, “May your name never be misspelled. Love, Aunty Yiling and Uncle Danny”. Unfortunately, our observant friend who helped pen the wish on Cristan’s card on our behalf, thought it was a genuine spelling mistake and helped change our names to their correct spelling. Joke foiled, thanks to Little Miss Autocorrect!
So we stuck with the traditional spelling of Colette and can only hope that people will do the same. Dan believes that being firm and taking steps to constantly correct errant spelling of his name helps to build character – but let’s just save her the pain, yes?
5. Not a joke
I liked the names Livia and Logan but didn’t want her future classmates teasing her by calling her “Liver” or “Longan” (although Dan also thinks that being able to handle teasing goes towards building character.) That said, Colette has been called Chocolate, Baby Chocolate, Coco Bean, Coco Pop, Coco Puff, but since we asked for it and I’m guilty of it too, she’ll have no choice but to live with that. Too bad, bub.
Having Cho as a surname also means that we have to deal with the occasional joke about bad smells (‘cho’ in Chinese) and noise (‘cao’ in Chinese), such as Cao Si Ren (meaning “so noisy until people die”). Talk about jokes cracked in bad taste. Pffft.
6. Have good connotations
A person’s name can bring to mind famous people who go by the same nomenclature. I certainly didn’t want to invite reactions such as, “Hey, wasn’t there a famous hooker/murderer/clown/bar hostess/stripper by the same name?” Like no sane Singaporean would name their son Michael Fay Tay, would they?
I think Colette is pretty safe (so far, since Professor Google hasn’t churned out any negative search results) and who doesn’t admire Coco Chanel for her elegant designs? Even Courtney Cox named her daughter after Coco the designer.
The positive connotations extend to initials too. CC (for Colette Cho) is okay. LC, PC, QC, WC would invite many a bad joke on the poor kid.
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We ran the name Colette by our folks and it found favour with everyone. I was rather apprehensive at first because it sounded a tad too saccharine for my liking, but Dan really liked it and I liked the idea of calling her Coco for short. Thus, I was appeased. In fact, I think it’s really cute that my friends’ kids ask to see “Baby Coco” and that she is my mum’s “Coco Baby”.
Chinese Names
Tradition has it that the child’s paternal grandfather would be invited to select a Chinese name for the newborn. My parents were obviously oblivious to such a tradition, because I started school without any Chinese characters for my name! My teacher sent a very bewildered child home with a note pinned to her uniform, asking her parents for her Chinese name. My equally bewildered parents brought me to my grandaunt that very night and asked her to select two Chinese characters for my name. They wisened up for their second and third kids, and thereafter bought a Chinese naming book to guide them in picking good Chinese names for my sister and brother.
Since Dan’s dad left it to us to decide upon a name, we approached a ‘name master’ who had a store located at KKH to propose a few options based on her birth date and time. We were asked to write the Chinese characters of our mothers’ and sisters’ names, as these had to be avoided. This, we had trouble producing on the spot. It didn’t help that my mum had forgotten how to write her own Chinese name! Tsk.
Less than 24 hours and $80 later, Dan collected the envelope containing the naming options generated by the name master. We were given five pairs of the best possible names generated based on Colette’s birth date and time. In addition, the master provided ten options for the second character of her name and another ten options for the third character. If we didn’t like any of the five proposed names, we could create our own name by mixing and matching any of the separate characters.
It wasn’t easy because our Chinese really sucks and the twenty separate characters didn’t come with hanyu pinyin, so we couldn’t even pronounce some of them, much less read and understand the meaning behind them. In fact, none of the suggested names or characters came with definitions, so we approached Dan’s parents and my relatives who were better skilled in the Chinese language, for help. After understanding all the options given, we decided upon Cao Kaixin, meaning “joyful heart/centre/core”, and I think this is one of the most beautiful of wishes we could bestow on our daughter through her name – to be able to know and experience true joy.
We could have mixed and matched to arrive at Ruixin (such a pretty name!) as well, but we thought Cho-Colette Raisin was a bit too evil a joke to live with. One bad pun on the poor girl’s name is more than enough.
So yes, many a thought went into the careful selection of our baby’s name and we are very happy with the name we have given her, our little Joyful Victory – or Happy Chocolate! We can only hope that she will love it too.
In any case, I’m not paying hundreds of dollars so that she can have her name changed later on!
Colette at 7 weeks – oblivious to all the effort that went into naming her (picture taken by her godpa at Tanjong Beach Club on my birthday last Saturday . That was her first time partying at TBC – and ours too!)
6 Comments
Alexandra
October 17th, 2011 at 7:25 am
Oh is it? I didn’t know commas are so important, in that case I better go back home and check both my children’s birthcerts! I don’t even know if we added commas or not! oh dear…
Yi Lin
October 14th, 2011 at 8:08 am
Thanks, you all. Credit for the witty suggestion of Cho Colette Rui Xin goes to my cousins. They delight in creating interesting versions of my baby’s name.
Flo: It’s pronounced koh-let, even in French 🙂 Have fun naming little Cai! Haha, looks like your hubby is on the roll already.
Oh Alex, it’s Cho Kai Xin Colette. We decided to place the family name first. And there’s no comma in the name because the registrar warned me that if we register the name with a comma, the comma must not be omitted in any official documents. Waaaaaaaay to troublesome, so we went punctuation-free. Thanks for the birthday wish!
Yann: Okaaay, when you mentioned that baby’s name is going to be a surprise, I didn’t know that it was a surprise for his daddy too! Looking forward to knowing what name you’ve picked for Mystery Boy. I suppose you were called “long yan” cos of your family name and the third character of your name? Poor thing!
Thank you Celine. Come by and visit again soon, before I go back to work in Dec!
Celine
October 13th, 2011 at 10:21 am
Kudos to u, YILIN & DANNIE for such a beautiful name – COLETTE 🙂 I really LIKE!
yAnn
October 13th, 2011 at 1:44 am
I love the meaning of Colette! It’s so apt and yes, she (and both of you) is the victor in this IVF battle. Feisty little bunny.
And yes, children can be so cruel when it comes to names. I was called Longan for most of my primary school days -_- and trust me, it wasn’t fun.
For my in utero kid, I have decided on a name but baby daddy doesn’t know hur hur. That’s cos the bubs is already taking on HIS surname so it’s only fair I get naming rights. 😉 He will find out the nugget’s name at birth, as will everyone else. Surprise!
Alex
October 13th, 2011 at 12:55 am
Hi Yi Lin, Happy belated Birthday! Cho-Colette Raisin really cracked me up, lol. Colette Cho Kaixin is really nice, thumbs up.
Flo
October 12th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Cho-Colette Raisin cracks me up!! I kept repeating the name over & over again.. Haha.
N i agree naming your kids is not easy, u are deciding a name that is gonna stick for life! My husband’s surname is Cai.. and he gets excited naming his future kid Cai Tao Kuey, Cai Xin, Cai Tao… Cai Yan..
How do you actually pronounce Colette? “Ko-leh”? Since its french?