My son has a new name - Bendon. That's the way his paternal grandma calls him. She can't pronouce the letter "r" as she grew up in Macau and there is no "r" syllable in Chinese language. But paternal grandpa can pronouce it even he was from Hong Kong. When we brought the baby home, she called him "baby". Then a few weeks later, she came up with the solution and started to call him Bendon. She even taught some of the other relatives how to call Brandon as Bendon if they couldn't pronouce it correctly. Worse, I remember some of the gifts we received during Brandon's full month party with his name as BENSON.
Sometimes I feel very annoy by that but I don't really know how to tell her. Since we do not have a Chinese name for Brandon, and she can't pronouce the letter "r", I guess there is no other solution. Unless we create a nickname for Brandon. But yet, I think she should try her best to use the correct pronounciation and shouldn't have used Bendon because his name is Brandon and not Bendon.
Yesterday night I was discussing with Hubby about how some Malaysians will pronouce "r" with "l". Rice = lice, Radio = ladio ... Brandon = Blandon/Blendon. Then I also mentioned to him may be we shouldn't name a second child with a letter "r" for the ease of calling by his mother.
7 comments:
You can always add a chinese name onto Brandon's birth cert. We did that with Belle. Now my in-laws call her by her chinese name.
I've never heard MIL call my hubby by his English name (because there is an "R" in it). She calls him by his unofficial Chinese name given by his paternal grandma. She doesn't call me by my English name too ... same reason - "R" haha! She never bothered to learn or improve her English despite living in NZ for so many years and having a hubby who is NZ born too and speaks perfect English with perfect Kiwi accent. She can't speak English but she does understand (good in eavesdropping). We didn't give Bee any Chinese name in her birth cert because from my FIL's generation down to my hubby and down to hubby's cousin's kids, all have no Chinese names. I'm not about to break their tradition. It'd be a different story if hubby was a Msian with a Chinese name :P
Very normal! My dad calls my son Jayson..although his name is Jayden. Worst then Brandon's prob coz it's totally different name. But what to do..atleast its better than my hub's side...they will say.."Ah..what's that baby's name again ah? Dunno la. Don't care la". Well,, i guess Jayson is better than "Don't care and don't know". haha
vien: if we have a chinese name, it will not go into the birth certificate. just like my husband, he has chinese name which we know but never ever use (not even his mom or dad would call him by his chinese name) and it was not in his birth cert.
g: my hubby got chinese name but is not in the birth cert and he suggested there is no point to give brandon a chinese name since we will not be using it anyway.
i always wonder if is that difficult for them to pronouce the letter "r"? i know is hard for me to tell because i knew it since i was young. oh yea, what is your name?
sasha: why ur dad calls him jayson? he can't pronouce the "jayden" or simply because he likes the name jayson more?
Anna, my hubs unofficial chinese name is also not registrered in his birthcert, neither is any of his cousins' and not even his dad! MIL kept asking if we're gonna give Bee an unofficial Chinese name and since we couldnt think of any, we said why not just translate her middle name "Michelle" to Chinese ie "Mei Suet" and just call her that but hey no, she told hubs "Mei Suet" has a bad meaning in Canto if mispronounced. I dont know what it was since she dare not tell me and I didnt bother to ask. So be it then, no Chinese name for them to call. It isnt so hard to pronounce "Fee Bee" anyway :P I agree with u, no point in giving Brandon a Chinese name when no one's gonna use/remember it. I didnt want Bee to feel any different to her Kiwi cousins or the local Aussie/NZ born Chinese here who mostly do not have Chinese names too. My name's Grace and hubs' Geoffrey :D Yeah I think it must be difficult for our parents' generation who are Chinese educated, to pronounce R. Actually my mom is one of them, she calls any Bryan as Lion and Geoff as Jess (my hubs becomes a female, alamak), Joyce as Joy *LOL*
I did not know that Brandon don't have a Chinese name. Well, initially we also have some confusion here when we give Darrius as a name and my MIL will call him 'Larious'... Ma'sian mah... but luckily he has a Chinese name so MIL will usually call the Chinese name.
g: phoebe is not difficult to pronouce. can call bee for short. my mil didn't push us in giving brandon a chinese name. but during the first few months, they do ask why not give him one, but we kept saying no and no and no, so i believed they got the msg.
angeleyes: no chinese name for my boy. is good to have one for ease of calling by ppl who doesn't know how to pronouce the english. but we didn't find one we like so we decided not to for now.
Post a Comment