What's in a name?

Names. We all have them but how often do we give them any thought? Well I've got lots of free time these days and when that happens I think about stuff. Rarely important or useful stuff but at least I think. Names are on my mind these days. Have you ever thought about where your name came from? I mean a LONG LONG time ago, who was your ancestor that chose your name and why? Some names are easy to see the source. For instance:

Jobs

People all over the world felt that they could identify with their jobs so much they chose their jobs as their names. The best example is Smith. A person who makes stuff. So a blacksmith should be a black person who makes stuff, right? But names and words can change over time as we will see. Others in this category are Cooper-barrel maker, Baker, Cook, Taylor, Butler, Fisher, Marshall, Barber, Weaver, Carpenter, Hunter and Miller.

Food

We eat every day. Ideally, more than once and not by ourselves. So it's no wonder that food found its way into the hearts of the forefathers who chose our names. Berry, Coffey, Lamb, Bass, Herring, Bean, Cherry, Mayo, Lemon and, of course, Curry and Rice. This is excluding Duncan, Hines, Kraft, Macdonald, Campbell, Perkins, Horton or other names that just remind us of delicious foods.

Nice

Some names were probably just picked because they're so nice to hear like Valentine, Day, Hale, Hardy, Love, Flowers, Frank, Boon, Golden, Gold, Good and Barr.

Wishful Thinking

Some were probably chosen with a little wishful thinking. The forefathers might have been hoping for a little self-fulfilling prophecy when they chose names like Young, Mo(o)re, Freeman, Banks, Rich, Gold, Golden, Cash, Fuller, King, Pope, Prince, Duke, Masters, Newman, Sharp, Smart, Wise, Wiley, (W)right, Strong, Hale, Hardy, Witt, Good, Best and Brewer.

Machismo

Some of the forefathers wanted tough sounding names, or possibly were just trying to make up for shortcomings when they chose names like Powers, Steele, Cannon, Sharp(e), Lions, Wolf(e), Strong, Wilder, Pierce, Lynch, Paine, and Savage.

Random Objects

Some of our forefathers seemed to go with the native North American method of choosing names whereby they just take a look around and name the kid after something they see. Here are a few examples some could probably have looked a little harder: Hall, Reed, Bell, Moss, Poole, Man(n), Marsh, Page, Warren, Webb, Wells, Barnes, and Ford.

Sex

Like eating sex is something we do every day, ideally more than once and not by ourselves. Here are a few names that unfortunately for the families have come to remind us of sex. Some more strongly than others. Parker/Park/Parks, Rogers, John, Johnson, Cummings, Peters, Peterson, Bishop, Wood, Cox, Long, Wang, Hardon, Dick(son), Bates, Bush, Ball, Hancock, Moon, Gay, Cherry, Castro?, Horn, Driver, Jones, Head, and my favourite, May. I had a friend named Tammy May. You'd be surprised how often that got her laid.

Not Nice

Some names make me think that parents didn't like their children. Like: Hicks, Welch, Little, Short, Small, Larson, Burke, Pratt, Fowler, Moran, Neal, Lowe, Barker, Gross, Leach, Moody, Palmer, Grey, or Boyle. And maybe somebody who didn't think much of himself chose the name Simpson. It means son of a dummy or simpleton.

?

I just can't figure these out: Walker, Wade, Graves, Rowe, Cross, (not happy?), Cunningham, (as opposed to a not so clever ham?), Baldwin, (I can tell you the bald don't win much), Warner, (what are we being warned of?), the Warners were probably good friends with the Hydes.

But variety is the spice of life and it's nice to have so many surnames. Here in Korea they only have about 250 surnames. Kim, Lee and Park make up about half the people here. Add Jung and Choi and you can guess the majority of Korean people's names. Names in Korea were originally chosen based on where people were from and being a small country... Believe it or not I've had a class here in Korea where every student's last name was Kim. TWICE! And these were not small classes. Of course they were chosen alphabetically to be in my class but still... it was weird.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just choose our own names? Homer Simpson chose "Max Powers" as his name. I've heard of several women named Sandy Beach. Red Green is one of my faves. When you start combining given names with surnames the fun begins: Annie Howe, Anita Bath/Goodman/Mann/Plummer etc., Willie B. Hardigan, Tim Burr, Tanya Hyde, Rose Bush, Robin Banks, Polly Esther Taylor, Mike Hunt, Marlon Fisher, Lance Boyle, (ouch), Justin Hale, Justin Case, Herb Rice, Harry + almost all the sex names, Chuck U. Farley, Chris P. Bacon, I.P. Frehley, the list never ends!

I've had some pretty funny names here in Korea too. Bum Suck is pretty common. So is Sue Me. Dong Suck, Ho Suck, You Suck, Suck Min, and it goes on. I had a GORGEOUS girl a long time ago in my Class whose name was Yoon Mi Ae. I will never forget her name cuz I would always think, "You and me eh?" when I looked at her. Then I had a student who told me his name was You. Just You. Usually they have two given names. I didn't want to call him You cuz I would feel rude saying, "YOU! What's the answer." So I asked if he had a nickname. Since his family name was Park and Koreans have trouble with the P and F sounds his nickname was "Fuck You". He told me his dream was to become a minister.

Sometimes Koreans think OUR names are funny too. I had a friend named Kim. That's salted seaweed here. It's also the most common name. None of her students could process that it was NOT her family name. Then she met a guy named Bob. Bob is very similar to the Korean word for "rice". When they make sushi they roll ingredients in rice and salted seaweed and call it "kimbob". I also met a girl named Belinda. In Korean "Pal in da" is a really rude way to tell a woman to spread her legs.

Anyhoo that's what's on my mind right now. It's nice to have leisure.