Name of a Chinese.

It is not complicated at all.

Jovey is my Christian name.
It is my given name ever since I was born, even when I'm from a Buddhist background family.
And in my family, I'm the only one with a Christian name in my birth certificate and IC.
Since superstitious Chinese believe that my given Chinese name would be disrespectful for elders to call me,
my parents gave me a English name too.

Elsa is my baptized name.
I was going to be water baptized and I was looking for a name, so I chose this myself.
It is the English version of Elizabeth (Isn't Elizabeth English?), which means devotion to God.
It is now my official name too. Just that it isn't in my IC.

Wong is my Surname.
It is our family name. My father has this in his, his father had this in his, and his father had this in his.
And it goes on and on and on.

Mun Lei is my Chinese name in English.
Since in official documents, they can't really type in my actual Chinese name.
So in my IC, my name would be Jovey Wong Mun Lei.
Though I said it is the English version of my Chinese name,
it is also how you would say it in Cantonese.
My dad is a Cantonese, so very naturally I am one too. (Although I don't speak Cantonese)

黄文蕾 is my Chinese name. How it is actually written.
Wong is the English version of 黄, which is my family name.
Usually right in front, sometimes there might be more than 1 characters,
but 1 character surname is more common.
文蕾 is my given Chinese name, which in English is Mun Lei.
I use this in my Chinese test papers a few years ago, not sure when would I be using it again.


Huang Wen Lei is how you read my Chinese name,
it's the han yu pin ying, the romanized version.
黄 pronounced as Huang, Chinese of Wong.
文 pronounced as Wen, Chinese of Mun.
蕾 pronounced as Lei, Chinese of Lei.





For Chinese, choosing a name is a big deal.
It could bring wealth and fortune into the house, or it could be a bad luck and curse to the person.
And there are many fortune tellers out there
who would read names to see what your name would do to your fate.
So there are many people who would change their names to get more luck.

Also, Chinese parents would try to get good characters to name their children.
For example, 文 is usually linked with educated.
My siblings all have this character in our names.
My brother 文轩 (Wen Xuan). I guess my parents want him to be educated and have great dignity, honor and chivalry.
My name 文蕾 (Wen Lei). Probably means to be educated and sweet like a flower's nectar.
My sister 文敏 (Wen Min). Probably means to be educated, quick, clever and smart.

My father says that the Chinese characters are very tricky.
At first, they wanted to name me 黄文蕊 (Huang Wen Rui).
蕊 with the same meaning as 蕾, the nectar of a flower.
However, there were too many 心 in this character, 心 means heart.
My parents are afraid that I would 三心二意. It literally means 3 hearts, 2 wills.
Which means that one person would always in a dilemma, can't decide on anything.
Thus, my name turned out to be as it is.



However, in my Chinese name, there is a character of 雷 inside 蕾.
雷 means thunder. It represents great power and great terror.
And since Chinese likes to think too much, this character was linked to a Chinese God, 雷公.
He is the ones in charged of bringing the thunder with his hammer.

Chinese superstitions says that when elder calls me by my Chinese name,
they would be calling the power of 雷公 over me,
which might make me as bad tempered as this fierce god is.
Also, Chinese have great respect for their gods.
Calling me by this name would remind them of the god,
and as they worship the god, they would sort-of pass on the worship to my name too.

Well, I am a Chinese, but I'm a Christian Chinese.
So I guess it doesn't apply to me.


Anyway, it was kind of interesting isn't it?
Hahaha...

Names sure are tricky...