Cuz I never hesitate to put a fool on his back…

Posted on by

Long have I bemoaned the often-fugly nomenclature of my people…but I was ignorant as to how good we have it, until I received a tip from one of you (thanks, M).

It turns out that Malayalees have nothing on Venezuelans, though if legislators in the land of OOogo Chavez have their way, we thenga-addicts will go back to being the undisputed world champions of weirdness (take that Lovelypreets and Pinkyjeets of the world! You wish you could be part of a set of siblings named Mincy, Quincy and Finsy):

Goodbye, Tutankamen del Sol.
So long, Hengelberth, Maolenin, Kerbert Krishnamerk, Githanjaly, Yornaichel, Nixon and Yurbiladyberth. The prolifically inventive world of Venezuelan baby names may be coming to an end.[NYT]

Inventive? That’s no exaggeration:

A glance through a phone book or the government’s voter registry reveals names like Taj-Mahal Sánchez, Elvis Presley Gomez Morillo, Darwin Lenin Jimenez…Other Venezuelan first names, which roll off the tongue about as easily in Spanish as in English, include Yusmairobis, Nefertitis, Yaxilany, Riubalkis, Debraska, as well as Yesaidú and Juan Jondre — transliterations of “Yes, I do” and “One hundred.” [IHT]
If electoral officials here get their way, a bill introduced last week would prohibit Venezuelan parents from bestowing those names — and many, many others — on their children. [NYT]

Oh, my. I need to pause for a giggle. Thanks. Okay, so what this means is that parents of newborns would have the pleasure of choosing a name for their baby, from a list of a scant 100 or so choices, which are all approved by the government, ostensibly to protect these fragile youngsters from a lifetime of mockery:

The bill’s ambition, according to a draft submitted to municipal offices here for review, is to “preserve the equilibrium and integral development of the child” by preventing parents from giving newborns names that expose them to ridicule or are “extravagant or hard to pronounce in the official language,” Spanish.

Okay. But why is this even an issue?

The debate over names starter last year when opponents of President Hugo Chavez questioned the accuracy of the voter rolls when it was found that a Superman was on the list.

However, electoral officials confirmed there are in fact two Venezuelans by that name registered to vote. [DailyIndia.com]

They’re doing it for the children, finally, someone is thinking of the children:

The bill also aims to prevent names that “generate doubts” about the bearer’s gender. [NYT]

Oh, boo-frickin-hoo. Try having to clarify, repeat, break down and spell Chandrashekharan Lakshminarayan Balasubramaniam daily, for the rest of your life. That isht builds character, yo. And patience. 😉

Guess what? Malayalees (and certain Punjabi Sikhs) have much in common with people in countries besides Venezuela! Who knew?

Whimsical names can also be found in other Latin American countries. Honduras has first names like Ronald Reagan, Transfiguración and Compañía Holandesa (Dutch Company), according to the newspaper El Heraldo. In Panama, local news media this year reported name-change efforts by an Esthewoldo, a Kairovan and a Max Donald. [NYT]

While I’ve heard of Mallu kids named Lenin or Stalin, people in Kerala don’t go this far (I think…scratch that, I hope):

Software searches of the voter registry find more than 60 people of voting age with the first name Hitler, including Hitler Adonys Rodríguez Crespo; eight Hochiminhs, among them Hochiminh Jesús Delgado Sierra; and six Eisenhowers, including Dwight Eisenhower Rojas Barboza. NYT

Maybe there are strong reasons for implementing such a bill?

…in Venezuela, where the tax authorities require name and national identity number for every purchase needing a receipt, pronouncing and spelling out Temutchin del Espíritu Santo can get tiring…With a name this complicated, you lose time,” he said.
“It also creates social problems,” he continued. “When interacting with others, not everyone can pronounce your name. I have to pronounce my name five times and spell it twice.” [NYT]

Seriously? Don’t make me get all Chandrashekharan Lakshminarayan Balasubramaniam on your kundi, now. Wuss. Derisiveness aside, are there more sinister implications behind this bizarre attempt to stifle whimsy?

Unusual names in Venezuela are often grist for awe or humor, but the issue is also politicized, given President Chávez’s gusto for renaming things, with critics of the bill claiming it would enhance his government’s naming authority in a realm where the fancy of parents still holds sway.
One of the president’s first moves was to change the country’s name from Republic of Venezuela to Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Part of Avenida Páez here has been renamed Avenida Teheran in a nod to Iran. The currency, the bolívar, is to be called the “bolívar fuerte,” or strong bolívar, starting next year.
In an editorial, the newspaper El Nacional described the measure as “malicious.” [NYT]

There are class issues here, as well:

Naming is related somewhat to social class, with the upper crust loyal to names like Andrés, Miguel, Carolina or Patricia. Chávez’s government has numerous officials with colorful names, reflecting how Venezuela’s traditional political elite has been upended in recent years [IHT]

This doesn’t make sense to me…if Chavez is all “down with the elite”, why would he take away the rights of the people to name their kids odd names? Or maybe this is revenge on the snooty, and everyone will have to name their child Hugo or Lenin:

Even today, a name or a political philosophy that might result in being ostracized elsewhere is no obstacle to a warm reception in Caracas. Chávez’s government has said, for instance, that it did not view Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan-born assassin also known as Carlos the Jackal, as a terrorist. Chávez addressed Ramírez as “Dear Compatriot” in letters they exchanged. [IHT]

Perhaps I’m not seeing the big picture, and I need to frame naming as an aspirational act (to use Kimora’s fave adjective)?

“Venezuelans believe they should have privileged access to things that are imported,” Hurtado continued, explaining how unusual-sounding names, often with an American or Russian twist, climbed in popularity during the oil boom of the 1970s when Venezuela was flush with cash for imports. “This thinking extends to the names parents give their children.” [IHT]

Now, this “logic” is so familiar…

While Venezuelan names can seem perplexing to outsiders, there are rules involved. Roberto Echeto, a novelist who compiled a list of unusual names after writing a newspaper column on the subject for El Nacional, points to practices like combining the names of a father and mother to produce, for instance, a son named Nelmar whose parents are Nelson and Marta. [IHT]

…as anyone who has heard the urban legend of the Malayalee kid named Shitee can affirm (Shiji + Teena).

At the end of it all, this tempest may be a waste of time. There’s already a law on the books which deals with this:

Though current Venezuelan law has a measure that registry authorities should not accept names that would expose children to ridicule, this has not been enforced till now. [DailyIndia.com]

Much ado about Superman and Batman, it seems.

110 thoughts on “Cuz I never hesitate to put a fool on his back…”

  1. This is such a great thread.

    My gastroenterologist’s first name is Cuckoo.

    Among Americans, I’ve run across a Candy Sweet, a Rock Group (his little sister, with whom my husband went to school, was named Pebble), and a Precious Star. And once, in a single day working in a medical office, we had patients named India, China and Asia right after one another.

    My grandmother’s family is from Backswamp, NC and I have relatives named Daisy Mae, Elbert, Garland, Teunis and Beaman. Honest.

  2. If I were a dictator, I would allow kids to rename their parents. The threat of “Yeah that’s my dad Garlic Paste and over there’s my mom Venkatesh”, should bring much needed sanity to kids’ lives.

  3. Ambassador Ambassador

    very cute, pingpong. i do know a doctor doctor. and i love the whole profession = surname thing in india – my last name is a derivation of phoolwala; there’s a guy near my aunt’s house whose name is the telugu word for plantain.

  5. A Venezuelan friend has a cousin with the name ‘Stayfree’.

    My Venezuelan assistant told me he had a male friend named Jodi in honor of Joe DiMaggio.

  6. Concepcion yes (often shortened to Concha) but I haven’t come across Immaculate Conception.

    Ohhh, I’ve definitely met a few Immaculate Conceptions (in Spanish, not English) who just wouldn’t tell anyone their full name. 🙂

    Also know an Autumn Joy whose birthday is in April. My favorite has to be the hippie names people’s weed-smoking summer-of-love parents give them. ak, the best thing about naming your kid Fiat would be having to explain whether the name is “Indian,” Italian or Latin 🙂

  7. ak, the best thing about naming your kid Fiat would be having to explain whether the name is “Indian,” Italian or Latin 🙂

    or a reference to currency. wouldn’t it be great if chavez’ finance minister was named fiat? he he

  8. My two favorite student names (after a decade of teaching): Jesus Bang Bang

    That reminds me of Hu Yao-Bang, who was once the top man in China and the subject of a question Dennis Miller once asked on SNL (the answer: nobody). The current Indonesian President is Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and while wiki says he goes by ‘Susilo’ or ‘SBY’, news anchors and late night comics have a lot of fun with his middle name, pronouncing it exactly as ‘bang bang’. 🙂

  11. Iceland’s had restrictions on naming for a long time, ostensibly in order to preserve their culture. For example, not only can you only pick names from a specific list of approved names, but you must also obey the last name naming convention, which requires the child to take the first name of dad and append “son” or “dottir” to the end, hence: Björk Guðmundsdóttir. You can get the skinny here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_name.

  12. I went to school with 3 sisters, sikh girls, called Sunny, Bunny and Hunny. They all changed their names legally when they went to college:-) Also, bongs have some awful nicknames. My aunt, now in her 60s, was nicknamed Laddoo (after the sweet because she was a chubby round baby) and has graduated to Aunty/Granny Laddoo. Also , have a distant cousin called Habloo which sort of translates as “slow”. Gogol has it easy, dont you think?

  13. I went to school with 3 sisters, sikh girls, called Sunny, Bunny and Hunny.

    i totally dig thosse names.

    Iceland’s had restrictions on naming for a long time, ostensibly in order to preserve their culture.

    what if your a desi living in iceland, or france. do you need to call your kids by a french/icelandic name? that would be wack. i want kids with nice little puli names. maybe like “cadley-kai”, or “cothumbri beeju”, or perhaps “puli”, or “saadhu”.

  14. what if your a desi living in iceland, or france. do you need to call your kids by a french/icelandic name?

    FYI, in fuerte Venezuela, “Indians and foreigners” are exempt from this name-limiting madness.

  16. Name pools in other coutries tend to shrink, dont they because everyone wants easy-to-pronounce names..like the explosion of Nikhils and Nehas amongst Indians here.

  20. lol! playawallah

    the amusing thing, is im probably the lease “playah” person on SM! (i spell i playah, cause if i say playa, it confuses my french friends into thining im talking about going to the beach or something)

  21. what if your a desi living in iceland, or france. do you need to call your kids by a french/icelandic name?

    That could be interesting, with the patronymic… Björk Chandrashekharansdóttir?

  22. was nicknamed Laddoo (after the sweet because she was a chubby round baby

    i was nicknamed idli as a kid – i was white, round (and fluffy?) and, of course south indian…

    lol! playawallah

    he he. a bit of pressure, though, no?

  25. i’ve forgotten most of my spanish, but yes, it means beach. is it the same in french?

    thanks, puli – it was very apt when i was a kid; not so much now…

  26. I think “playa” is Spanish?

    i dont know any of these languages. i just got sick of confusing my h*t french friend. shed keep asking me if i was going to the jersey shore if i mentioned ‘playa’. im REALLY bad at languages.

  28. what if your a desi living in iceland, or france.

    France: You have to select a name from a shortlist of government-approved names. Go figure. Hey, they’re the French! They call it “Le Big Mac”!

    Iceland: Icelandic names run like first order Markov chains, like many South Indian names.

  29. France: You have to select a name from a shortlist of government-approved names. Go figure. Hey, they’re the French! They call it “Le Big Mac”!

    so, FBD would need to call his kid “Jean Ramamurthy”?

  31. so, FBD would need to call his kid “Jean Ramamurthy”?

    Hopefully they have a sufficiently wide variety of ethnicities represented in the names. I suspect that the national list of approved names is some attempt to prevent names like “Adolf Hitler”. Germany apparently also bans “Osama bin Laden”.

    To be honest, I am not comfortable with this notion of the government banning names based on what it likes or doesn’t like. While I think parents are stupid to name their kid “4real” or “LaTrina” (“it means a toilet WHERE?!”), allowing a government-approved list is scary on many levels.

  32. allowing a government-approved list is scary on many levels.

    depends on your view of government. people in the US might think of that as 1984esque, but i think in France, the state is also viewed as a guardian of language and culture, so…

  33. “Raghunath Manet”

    Was he from Reunion (or Mauritius) by any chance? I once knew someone from Reunion with a name like that.

  34. By the way, I thought I should mention the source for my earlier comment about the French national list of names: link (search the page for “national list”)

  37. pingpong, don’t you think the list must include approved names that aren’t of French origin? There are so many North Africans living and having children in France and you know they aren’t naming their little ones Agathe, Pierre, Benoit and Marie-Helene….

  38. pingpong, don’t you think the list must include approved names that aren’t of French origin? There are so many North Africans living and having children in France and you know they aren’t naming their little ones Agathe, Pierre, Benoit and Marie-Helene….

    I hope that there is variety in the list. I don’t know much about this list myself other than that it exists (link provided in comment #84). But I really don’t know why such a list would exist in the first place: was it to prevent names like “Adolf Hitler”, was it to protect children from overly-creative parents, was it to preserve the local culture, or was it some unconscious former xenophobia? If you (or anyone) have any information on the list, please mention the links here: I’d like to read up on its history myself.

  39. I think you and Puli hit it right with saying it has to do with preserving French culture and history and that history has much to do with North Africa, thus they’ve made room on the approved list for names from those countries, specifically Morocco and Algeria. I’ll just quickly give one example: Rachida Dati, France’s new Minister of Justice. Dati was born in France, one of 12 children of illiterate Moroccan father and Algerian mother. As for the preserving French culture, they’ve banned using Franglais(mixture of French/English) in any official/commercial sense, although your everday French citizen uses English words: le weekend, le sandwich…

  41. but i think in France, the state is also viewed as a guardian of language and culture, so…

    it’s true – i read that one of the tasks of the cultural ministry is to find proper french equivalents for foreign-language-based words. i guess they find this particularly necesary these days when many of the new technologies have english-based words, e.g. internet, e-mail etc…

  42. I am proud to note that my name would TOTALLY fly in France 😉 For the record, my fave Punjabi nickname is Motu.

    But I’m with pingpong, I generally find these kind of restrictions a bit bizarre and especially inappropriate coming from the State.

    Puli, playa = beach in Spanish (pronounced differently than “playa” as in player).

  44. Marie-Helene Muhammad Azjefah bin Mode Aziz Tariq.

    I feel like such a dork as I just looked that name up. doh! Thanks, Puli ; )

  45. why should the government prevent someone naming their kids “Adolph Hitler” or “Osama bin Laden”. its my damn kid. ill call him “24601” for all i care. its no one elses business but mine, and the other [TBD] ingredient in the baby making process.

  46. I do too! But can you imagine a 4-star general with the last name of ‘Major’?

    Like pingpong mentioned earlier :Major Major Major Major in Catch -22 was “promoted to major by an IBM computer with a faulty diode and a wicked sense of humor”

    why should the government prevent someone naming their kids “Adolph Hitler” or “Osama bin Laden”. its my damn kid. ill call him “24601” for all i care. its no one elses business but mine, and the other [TBD] ingredient in the baby making process

    Puli, Agree that legislation on this is a bit too nanny state. But I seriously wish parents would stop and think about the effect that an outlandish name will have on their kids before they go wild. Teasing on the playground is just the start of what could be a lifelong complex….

    Weirdest names I ever heard:

    -Purification ( I kid you not) -Brother and sister named Cherish and Charisma ( mallus!)

    And this is my favorite and most hilarious site on bad names, that has provided many hours of mirth!

  47. Recently Dalton Conley, a New York sociologist, continued his family’s experimentation with the psychological effects on children of unique naming by officially changing his son’s name to “Yo Xing Heyno Augustus Eisner Alexander Weiser Knuckles Jeremijenko Conley” although his friends continue to call him Yo Conley. Yo’s sister was experimentally blessed with the moniker E on the theory that she might have her own ideas about whether she’s really an Eve or Elizabeth or Ellen or maybe Eveready.

    From Wordlab.com (and I know its true!)

  48. ak wrote:

    speaking of children’s names, my cousins have changed their daughter’s name 4 times, based on numerology – wtf? poor kid has had a hard time keeping up…

    LOL..that reminds me of my poor little nephew (cousins kid). His mom is Hindu, Dad is Muslim (and both sets of grandparents are staunchly religious). The child was given three names in addition to his last name…the first name was the choice of the childs parents and is English (Alex), the second name is Hindu (Ravi), and the third is Muslim (Tamim). All three sets of couples call the child three different names…the parents call him Alex, the maternal parents only refer to him as “Ravi’ and the paternal parents only call him “Tamim”.

    Poor, poor kid.

  49. -Brother and sister named Cherish and Charisma ( mallus!)

    Well, if the Ch in Cherish is to be pronounced like the Ch in Charisma, with a little aspiration the kids could get away with “Harish and Karishma”. Still works out for brother-sister pair. This is actually a nice set of dual-use names – can be used by desis not familiar with Mallu names and also by non-desis not familiar with desi names!

  50. Poor, poor kid

    Actually,I think the kid has a really nice name and I hope he appreciates it when he grows up.Like Amar Akbar Anthony or John Jani Janardhan 🙂