7 April 2011, by Dannie Cho
Of Sinful Indulgences A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Out of the thousands of things that a woman goes through during pregnancy, men can only help out in less than ten, by my reckoning. So, I think it is my husbandly duty to take full control of those things if possible. Just to lighten the poor wife’s load.
So it is with gleeful abandon that I have plunged myself into the terribly important job of choosing a name for our baby.
My very first move is to drop the name ‘Jack’ from the list of choices. Now, Jack is a nice, simple strong name. I mean… Jack! He’s nimble, he’s quick, he jumps over the candlestick! And climbs a giant beanstalk into the clouds with no safety apparatus whatsoever (I prefer to think of it as brave, not foolhardy). But I’m a person who works closely with airlines. It’s just not right. You say, “Hi Jack!” and next thing you know, you are face-down on the floor with your arm pinned painfully behind you, a taser pressed against your face in case you try to struggle against the air marshal…
But I digress.
I think I would like a somewhat unique name for my firstborn. It doesn’t have to be too unique – we don’t want to make up names and forever have to explain to people how to spell the name – it just has to be unique enough to stand out a little. But even these “unique enough” names have gained popularity recently. The wife tells me that Aidan, Cayden, Eva and Giselle have already made it to the top 10 names for babies in Singapore in the past year. Ah well… good thing they were not on my list of choices.
What I have in mind is to make good use of my surname (CHO). Since my surname is already quite unique, it goes to follow that any name I come up with will be unique!
So, despite not knowing the gender of the baby yet, I’ve come up with several ideas:
- Pon
- Na
- Ma
- E
- Pista
- Keslam (pronounced ‘Caslem’)
- Colette
- Sun Wan (the father-in-law suggested this)
The wife looked at my list of names, and understood my intentions immediately.
“You,” she said with a worried face, “are going to make our child’s life a living hell with those names!”
For those of you who still don’t understand it, here are the full names, along with the reasons why the wife was worried:
- Pon Cho – Sounds like a wet blanket. Sounds like Porn too. Wife is worried that when our child goes to school, our child’s classmates will go home and tell their parents that their best friend in school is Pon. Or that they were stuck in detention with Pon for bad behavior.
- Na Cho – This name is a little cheesy. “Na” also sounds like something you would say, along with a certain finger action.
- Ma Cho – This is a good strong masculine name, but only if called out in full. Would feel weird to call our child “Ma”, though.
- E Cho – Say what? We would have to repeat over and over again, when trying to make flight bookings, that E is a name, not an initial! not an initial! not an initial!
- Pista Cho – One of those really nutty names that I came up with. But I hate bad spelling, so this name doesn’t crack me up as much.
- Cho Keslam – Sounds a little painful. My throat seizes up trying to pronounce the name.
- Cho Colette – I think this is a sweet name. A bonus is that as Colette grows up, she can choose to pursue indoor activities (in which case, she will be white Cho Colette) or outdoor activities (dark Cho Colette). Every day would be a sundae with her! This goes into my KIV list.
- Cho Sun Wan – This! This is the name of sagas! Of epic poems and songs of great deeds! But if we ever decide to have a second child, Cho Sun Too really doesn’t sound as good.
I was really despairing of my ability to complete even the simple task of naming my kid, when the wife made a simple, marvelous suggestion.
CHO BI WAN, KENOBI.
Yup. I look at this name, and already a theme song runs through my head. A theme song composed by John Williams, no less!
Named after a Jedi Master, whose name was in turn inspired by brave in honourable samurai in feudal Japan, I think this name is strong in the Force.
Oh, but wait… what if we have a girl? Now, I’m putting my bets here on the blog. I really, really think that my firstborn will be a boy. Not that I have a preference, I have a gut feel.
But if my gut is wrong and our baby turns out to be a girl? Ah well… I think I’ll name her CHO BECCA and hopes she doesn’t blame me if it turns out she’s got hairy genes!
Posted on : April 7, 2011
Filed under : Mums- & Dads-to-be
15 Comments
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Madeline
April 10th, 2011 at 5:49 am
TWO ninja turtles? And I bet their parents thought they were cool and original! haha.
Kristen
April 8th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
Hahaha, don’t think I’m as big a fan as you though ๐ Actually Jake was nearly called Luke and Oscar was nearly a George but I got vetoed…maybe I’ll get lucky and we can get a cat and I can call it Yoda…
I do hope you’ve seen this:
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Girl-Princess-Costume-6-12M/dp/B001EB9HLM
Personally, I think Leia Cho is a fab name ๐
Dannie
April 8th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Alexandra: Thanks. Yes, you almost got it right. Chio Bu means pretty girl in Hokkien. But I’d sound like I was boo-ing my kid all the time! Talk about psy-CHO-logical trauma!
Kenneth: That little planning, huh? It’s a wonder you didn’t call your daughter Yearwood instead! ๐
Kristen: Did you wookiepedia that or are you a Star Wars fan too?
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Tracy Su
April 8th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
I know, I’s teasing you lah. *sorry* I have a feeling that whatever name you guys come up with, Cho Bi Wan is somehow gonna stick. It’s the awesomest name in the world…and I’m not even into Star Wars!
As you’re even cho-king back tears, I think there’s potential you’ll one day love the name as much as Dan’s sense of humour…
Please don’t not speak to me again! *duck*
Yi Lin
April 8th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Trace: I was only joking when I said Cho Bi Wan Kenobi! After that I was cho-king back tears when I realised he was quite serious about using that…
Madeline: the names listed in your blog post are REALLY BAD!!!! Just yesterday, I didn’t believe my colleague who said she’s heard of a Ninja Turtle Lim. Can’t believe it’s for real! Better still, the one you named is Ninja Turtle Lew. So there’s more than one turtle running around. Maybe four of them?!
Kenneth
April 8th, 2011 at 12:59 am
Yo bro, I just picked my daughter’s name like from a music CD cover! Ha! It turns out my wife loves the name Trisha.
Alexandra
April 8th, 2011 at 12:52 am
Dannie, this is a great blog, cracked me up this morning! I think the Cho Bu one is in hokkien like sexy woman or something…
Kristen
April 8th, 2011 at 12:20 am
I know twins called Luke and Leia – no joke…though they are goldfish.
You’re forgetting George, Lucas, Anakin, Mace, Boba or maybe for a girl Padme, Callista, Jocasta? I also know a girl called Chooi ๐
Madeline
April 7th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
OMG “Hi, Jack!”.. funny!
Incidentally I did a post on horrible baby names, and these were REAL names given by real parents at a local hospital. You should totally go check it out (alr linked it to my name). Hmm maybe you can get more ideas? Haha. Please don’t kill me Yilin =)
Dannie
April 7th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Bu? Why would I want my kid to be bu’d all the time? :p
Dannie
April 7th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Hi Tracy,
Check out this video. It might help ๐
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOaeZqSudL8
Rustyslave
April 7th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
This entry make me laugh…
But I got another girly name.. How ab “CHO BU” for a gal?
Tracy Su
April 7th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
I still think Cho Bi Wan, Kenobi is an awesome name…Cho Becca is not bad either =)
Isn’t it great that your wife picked your favourite name? No disagreements!
I don’t get the Keslam one ๐