This is a post about whaddyacallsits, you know, umm, names. Yes that's it, names.
When I lived in the Netherlands, my nickname in school was 'Bamie Bal'. This was a result of having a name which the other kids in school had never heard before, and which they found odd, foreign, and unnatural to pronounce.
An Aramaic name out of scripture is indeed odd, foreign, and unnatural, I guess.
[Unlike such names as Peter, Paul, Mathew, Mark, Luke, John..... Mary, Magdalene, Daniel, David, Efraim, Josef ..... Yep, those are all real natural and native. Yes.]
A bamie bal is a fried noodle dumpling. Bamie (bak-mi) is meat (bak) and noodles (mi) cooked with chives, chilies, and a touch of sweet soy sauce. It is a tasty Hokkien Chinese dish much popular in Indonesia. Unlike names from Aramaic, the term 'bamie' is standard Dutch. Go figger. The Bamie Bal takes the meat-noodle concept, clumps it into a ball, breads it and deep-fries it, and serves it crispy-crunchy-crusty filled with greasy goodness. It is available in several variations from every frituur, and inedible in every iteration.
[I might as well also mention that my nickname in SF China Town for many years was 'Dow Sa Ping' - the name of a flaky flat bun filled with sweet bean paste. Far less greasy than Dutch fast-food, though. So a considerable improvement. America been veddy veddy good to me.]
I was quite lucky. One of my classmates was Lettie (Leticia). Which naturally first became Letje (little Letty - the je/sje/tje postfix is a diminutive), and then became 'sletje' (little slut). Her school years in Valkenswaard may have been less than pleasant. Just a guess.
When she was accepted at university she left and never looked back.
I shan't even mention that everybody who lived on the tail-end of Kerkweg (formerly known as Stink Pad - stinky path) inevitably became Stinkwyf (stinking bitch), Stink hoer (stinking whore), Stink varken (stinking pig), Stink lul (stinking penis), or Stink gat (stinking arsehole). Except for Stalen Jesus (steel Jayzus) and his wife - who had no name.
From this it should be apparent that names are not inviolate, and in the Netherlands at least, nicknames are frequently unpleasant.
[Attention! This is an understatement. It is meant both diplomatically and ironically.]
Two of my friends, in consequence, dared not go by the names that they were called at home.
Truus was called Toet (pronounced 'toot) at home - it can be short for either 'patoet' (patoot - right, proper, fitting) or 'kentoet' (k'ntoot - fart). Both terms are Indonesian.
Had her classmates known of the second meaning, you can imagine how thoroughly abrasive they would have been.
Koei-Eng went by the name Katerina (Katja for short). Her real name was lovely..... In Chinese. In Chinese it means Cassia Fragrance/Perfume (桂 香).
In Dutch, unfortunately, it means bovine creepiness.
[I do not remember her as being a disconcerting cow, but rather as a very nice bright girl who lived in Eindhoven, the oldest of two sisters in a brood of five kids (her little sister was Cassia Perfume/Fragrance - 桂 芬). The dad was a severely Dutch gentleman of Chinese extraction, who had been an engineer in the Indies, a graduate of the Technische Hooge School in Bandoeng, which is now the Institut Teknologi Bandung.]
Not all kids have nicknames - there is not much malformation that can be done on Kees, Koos, Gerrit, Guus, Jan, Peer, etcetera.
Lucky bastards.
I have always been a little resentful of Appie, Bas, Baps, Bertje, Bop, Himpie, Jonk, Pim, and Triks for having normal names. Not that I wanted to change mine. Rather, I wanted them to suffer the nicks a bit too. Or a lot.
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4 comments:
take yoni, although I have no clue if they are spelled the same way.
in yiddish its fine, in sanskrit, not so much :(
I didn't learn about this until I was well along in years.
but hey, it makes me much, much harder to google, as thats the name I usualy use. :)
Hmmm, what dialect was "桂 香" pronounced Koei Eng? In Cantonese it would be Gwai3 Hoeng1 and in Mandarin Gui4 Xiang1 ...
But names can be interesting. When I first heard the joke Cantonese speakers make of Aussie (屙屎) I thought it was pretty humourous.
Richard,
I think it must be Hokkien (Min Nan Hwa) - most Chinese from that neck of the woods in Indonesia were Fujianese, though there were also Hakka and of course Cantonese.
[Hakka dialect I am not familiar with - heard it a few times, sounds like Double-Dutch Mandarin to me.]
In the Min Nan Hwa I know, however, it would have been 'Ong' (same as in Ong-Pin Te - Hsiang Pien Cha - Jasmine Tea).
On the other hand, my signicant other would pronounce it 'Herng'.
The transcription 'koei' is the Dutch orthography for kwei / gui.
Completely tangentially:
You know a name you don't come across much anymore? Ralph.
I suspect you could come up with a pretty good idea of when "ralph" started to gain currency as a synonym for a certain excretion by charting the percentage of boy children who had that unfortunate name foisted upon them.
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