For the record, I count all these names amongst my friends on Facebook.
5. Wang
4. Ho
3. Dong
2. Kok
1. Poon
See also:
The most awesome Thai names
Hong Kong names, part 2
Quiz time: European names
How Muslim names evolve around the world
Weird spammer names
The world's most average name
Showing posts with label names. Show all posts
Showing posts with label names. Show all posts
Friday, 29 June 2012
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Weird spammer names
I'm sure, like me, you get your share of spam entering your mailbox. One thing that I've found increasingly amusing is the names of the spammers - clearly not their real names - which appear to be randomly generated. Some of them come across as pretty regular names, while some of them are names that could possibly be real, but seem to be just too awesome for anyone to have in real life, other than the hero of a 70s blaxploitation flick. Examples:
Houston Justice
Odis Youngblood
Preston Hawk
Ulysses Paige
Wendell Sylvester
Others, again, could possibly real but seem just kinda odd:
Roosevelt Mims
Alsatia Entartre
Tonia Yazzie
Ethyl Kathyrn
My favourites are those that look like odd juxtapositions of Spanish first names and English surnames, to make combinations that seem very unusual in real life (but might be reasonable in a future Hispanicized USA). Examples are:
Salvatore Burton
Ramon Light
German Sims
Maricela McNeal
Juan Stroud
Alphonse Grady
Lucio Hargrove
Raymundo Lane
Marcos Whitman
Graciela Morrow
Refugio Stuart
Porfirio Levine
Luz Hanks
Jorge Head
Marcelo Barry
Moises McCain
Carlo Ayers
Even weirder are the ones that combine Asian first names with European surnames, such as:
Yong Ladner
Mao Evelina
But my all-time favourite is one that is not just awesome, but seems to represent a future peaceful and unified Middle East. I present to you:
Muhammad Goldstein
That name is just so awesome that I was almost tempted to buy whatever cock-enlarging product he was trying to sell me.
On the topic of spammers, this clip from The Onion from a couple of years back is not only hilarious, but manages to capture the language of the spam industry perfectly.
Houston Justice
Odis Youngblood
Preston Hawk
Ulysses Paige
Wendell Sylvester
Others, again, could possibly real but seem just kinda odd:
Roosevelt Mims
Alsatia Entartre
Tonia Yazzie
Ethyl Kathyrn
My favourites are those that look like odd juxtapositions of Spanish first names and English surnames, to make combinations that seem very unusual in real life (but might be reasonable in a future Hispanicized USA). Examples are:
Salvatore Burton
Ramon Light
German Sims
Maricela McNeal
Juan Stroud
Alphonse Grady
Lucio Hargrove
Raymundo Lane
Marcos Whitman
Graciela Morrow
Refugio Stuart
Porfirio Levine
Luz Hanks
Jorge Head
Marcelo Barry
Moises McCain
Carlo Ayers
Even weirder are the ones that combine Asian first names with European surnames, such as:
Yong Ladner
Mao Evelina
Sung Graham
But my all-time favourite is one that is not just awesome, but seems to represent a future peaceful and unified Middle East. I present to you:
Muhammad Goldstein
That name is just so awesome that I was almost tempted to buy whatever cock-enlarging product he was trying to sell me.
On the topic of spammers, this clip from The Onion from a couple of years back is not only hilarious, but manages to capture the language of the spam industry perfectly.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
The world's most average name
Here's a thought experiment.
Meet Muhammad Chen. He is the world's most average person.
Well, sort of. According to this post over at Abagond's blog, the world's most average person is a 28 year-old male who lives in Shenzhen in China and is a Roman Catholic. His name is a combination of the world's most common surname (Chen) and the world's most common given name (Muhammad).
So why don't you ever meet anyone named Muhammad Chen?
You don't have to be a genius to figure out that despite those being the most common given and surnames in the world, the combination of them is not common at all. Why? Because Muhammad is a name associated with the Muslim world, Chen is a name associated with Han Chinese, and those are two worlds that don't have a great deal of overlap. So the world's most average name is actually a very uncommon one.
Actually I know for a fact that there are a few Muhammad Chens out there somewhere, but my guess is that almost none of them actually live in China. Here’s why:
Muslims do exist in China - there are estimated to be around 20 million of them and perhaps many more according to some estimates. The main Muslim groups in China are the Hui (Chinese Muslims), and various Central Asian people (including Uighurs, Kazakhs, Salar and Dongxiang) from Western China.
Many of the Central Asians tend to have Muslim/Turkic names (including Muhammad, I assume), but because they are not Han Chinese, it is unlikely that they would have a surname like Chen. (An example is the Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.) By contrast some of these groups, such as the Salar and Dongxiang, have Mongol or Chinese names.
The Hui, who make up around half of all Muslims in China, often claim ancestry dating back to the Arab and Persian traders who arrived in China during Mongol rule. But even though they are officially considered an ethnic minority, the Hui are effectively Han Chinese in virtually all aspects save religion. They look like Han Chinese, speak Chinese, and have Chinese names. The Arabic names of their ancestors have become Chinese over time – so Muhammad might become Ma, or Mu.
So even among the 20-million-plus Muslims in China, you would be hard-pressed to find a Muhammad Chen. The Chinese and Arabic naming traditions are not so conducive to merger; although if there exists a Hong Kong pop singer named Khalil Fong, then anything is possible.
So where to find a Muhammad Chen?
Out of curiosity I ran a Facebook search on Muhammad Chen, and all the results I could find with an identifiable nationality were from Indonesia. This makes sense. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, has around 10 million ethnic Chinese. Of those, only a minority are Muslim, and while some of them have fully adopted Arabic or Indonesian names, some may have adopted a Muslim name yet kept their surname. Alternatively, the Muhammad Chens could be the product of a mixed Chinese and pribumi (native Indonesian) marriage. Similar result for spelling variations of Muhammad (Mohammad, Muhamad, etc), and I even tried Muhammad Chan for the hell of it. Most seemed to be Indonesian.
So there you have it. I dunno if that interested you, but it did me. Maybe I need to find better hobbies.
Meet Muhammad Chen. He is the world's most average person.
Well, sort of. According to this post over at Abagond's blog, the world's most average person is a 28 year-old male who lives in Shenzhen in China and is a Roman Catholic. His name is a combination of the world's most common surname (Chen) and the world's most common given name (Muhammad).
So why don't you ever meet anyone named Muhammad Chen?
You don't have to be a genius to figure out that despite those being the most common given and surnames in the world, the combination of them is not common at all. Why? Because Muhammad is a name associated with the Muslim world, Chen is a name associated with Han Chinese, and those are two worlds that don't have a great deal of overlap. So the world's most average name is actually a very uncommon one.
Actually I know for a fact that there are a few Muhammad Chens out there somewhere, but my guess is that almost none of them actually live in China. Here’s why:
Muslims do exist in China - there are estimated to be around 20 million of them and perhaps many more according to some estimates. The main Muslim groups in China are the Hui (Chinese Muslims), and various Central Asian people (including Uighurs, Kazakhs, Salar and Dongxiang) from Western China.
Many of the Central Asians tend to have Muslim/Turkic names (including Muhammad, I assume), but because they are not Han Chinese, it is unlikely that they would have a surname like Chen. (An example is the Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.) By contrast some of these groups, such as the Salar and Dongxiang, have Mongol or Chinese names.
The Hui, who make up around half of all Muslims in China, often claim ancestry dating back to the Arab and Persian traders who arrived in China during Mongol rule. But even though they are officially considered an ethnic minority, the Hui are effectively Han Chinese in virtually all aspects save religion. They look like Han Chinese, speak Chinese, and have Chinese names. The Arabic names of their ancestors have become Chinese over time – so Muhammad might become Ma, or Mu.
So even among the 20-million-plus Muslims in China, you would be hard-pressed to find a Muhammad Chen. The Chinese and Arabic naming traditions are not so conducive to merger; although if there exists a Hong Kong pop singer named Khalil Fong, then anything is possible.
So where to find a Muhammad Chen?
Out of curiosity I ran a Facebook search on Muhammad Chen, and all the results I could find with an identifiable nationality were from Indonesia. This makes sense. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, has around 10 million ethnic Chinese. Of those, only a minority are Muslim, and while some of them have fully adopted Arabic or Indonesian names, some may have adopted a Muslim name yet kept their surname. Alternatively, the Muhammad Chens could be the product of a mixed Chinese and pribumi (native Indonesian) marriage. Similar result for spelling variations of Muhammad (Mohammad, Muhamad, etc), and I even tried Muhammad Chan for the hell of it. Most seemed to be Indonesian.
So there you have it. I dunno if that interested you, but it did me. Maybe I need to find better hobbies.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Quiz Time! (European names)
Ok, here's a bit of a test for you.
So you know how Paolo is the Portuguese version of Paul, Antonio is the Italian version of Anthony, and Juan is the Spanish version of John?
Well, there's a lot more where that came from. Below are some names from all over Europe and surrounding areas. All are local versions of male given names that are common in English.
Your task: to identify their common English variant. Some of them are quite easy, some a little harder, but all are guessable if you put your mind to it. It might be helpful to bear in mind the way sounds can change from region to region; for instance, a /p/ sound in one language might easily be replaced by a /f/ or /b/ in another language.
1. João (Portuguese)
2. Guillaume (French)
3. Bostjan (Slovene)
4. Thiago (Brazilian Portugese)
5. Hagop (Armenian)
6. Hristo (Bulgarian)
7. Djibril (Arabic)
8. Dawit (Amharic)
9. Sikander (Persian/Hindi/Urdu)
10. Duarte (Portuguese/Spanish)
11. Jerzy (Polish)
12. Carlito (Spanish)
13. Boutros (Arabic)
14. Klaas (Dutch)
15. Shmuley (Hebrew)
16. Giuseppe (Italian)
Bear in mind that each of the above is not necessarily the only variant of that name, in the same way that Rick, Richard and Dick are all variants of the same name in English.
I shall post the answers in the comments section (below).
_______________________________
You may also like:
Guess the ethnicity - Spot the Eurasian!
How Muslim names evolve around the world
Hong Kong names
The most awesome Thai names
So you know how Paolo is the Portuguese version of Paul, Antonio is the Italian version of Anthony, and Juan is the Spanish version of John?
Well, there's a lot more where that came from. Below are some names from all over Europe and surrounding areas. All are local versions of male given names that are common in English.
Your task: to identify their common English variant. Some of them are quite easy, some a little harder, but all are guessable if you put your mind to it. It might be helpful to bear in mind the way sounds can change from region to region; for instance, a /p/ sound in one language might easily be replaced by a /f/ or /b/ in another language.
1. João (Portuguese)
2. Guillaume (French)
3. Bostjan (Slovene)
4. Thiago (Brazilian Portugese)
5. Hagop (Armenian)
6. Hristo (Bulgarian)
7. Djibril (Arabic)
8. Dawit (Amharic)
9. Sikander (Persian/Hindi/Urdu)
10. Duarte (Portuguese/Spanish)
11. Jerzy (Polish)
12. Carlito (Spanish)
13. Boutros (Arabic)
14. Klaas (Dutch)
15. Shmuley (Hebrew)
16. Giuseppe (Italian)
Bear in mind that each of the above is not necessarily the only variant of that name, in the same way that Rick, Richard and Dick are all variants of the same name in English.
I shall post the answers in the comments section (below).
_______________________________
You may also like:
Guess the ethnicity - Spot the Eurasian!
How Muslim names evolve around the world
Hong Kong names
The most awesome Thai names
Monday, 1 November 2010
The most awesome Thai names
Thai people have a wonderful culture with much to be proud of. They also have (at least to an English speaker with a puerile sense of humour) the funniest language in all of Asia. In spoken form, it doesn't actually sound all that funny, but when Thai names and words are transcribed into Roman script, it's hard not to crack a smile. I mean, who hasn't read the menu at a Thai restaurant and shared a giggle at dishes such as gang dang and phat prik?
And of course there are place names such as Bang Sue, Baan Sukchoke, Dong Rak and Ban Pornpis. If you don't find those things even a teeny bit funny, you are way too mature for this blog post.
Bear in mind that because Thais have their own alphabet, there is no standard way of spelling Thai words and names in Roman script, so you will have many variations - pad thai can also be written as phat thai, for example.
Of course, a lot of the humour to be derived from Thai names comes from how you think they would or could be pronounced, rather than how they actually sound in real life. Thus names like Pachrapa or Chumphorn can be funny when you read them but not especially so when you hear them said by a Thai.
Other names, like Poonlarp, might require a little bit of cultural and/or pop cultural knowledge to get why they are funny - larp (or laap, or larb) is a kind of salad made from ground meat, so larp made from poon is an interesting concept.
Certain sounds that frequently turn up in Thai names are innately amusing, at least to my infantile mind. One is "-sak", which corresponds nicely to the English word "sack" meaning both a bag to carry things in, and a scrotum. Thus you have names like Choosak, Damrongsak, and my personal favourite of all Thai names, Terdsak. All of which can conjure up some nice mental images.
The other one of course, is "-porn", which is sometimes written as the less amusing "-pon". Which gives rise to names like Jesdaporn and Pornthip. Sometimes there is a convergence of rude-sounding words such as Pornsak. The best of all, however, is undoubtedly Supaporn. You really can't get better than that.
Of course, plenty of Thai names are just awesome without being naughty-sounding. There's something about the name of (politician) Somkid Jatusripitak which I just love. While names like Lada Engchawadechasilp (a former Miss World contestant) or Kejmanee Pichaironnarongsongkram (actress and singer)are admirable just for being so damned difficult to pronounce without considerable practice.
But lest you think I'm singling out Thai names, you can find examples of this sort of thing in pretty much every language and country. India, for example, has wonderful names like Jayant Bhatt, Deepa Dikshit, and Priti Kanthi. And it should be pointed out that while Thai names can seem funny to the English speaker, English names can be just as funny to Thais, depending on how they are pronounced (Thai is a tonal language, so there can be various ways of pronouncing a word). For example, according to this article at least, the name "Jim" sounds a lot like Thai slang for "vagina", while "Johnson" sounds like the term for "small penis".
Got some more names to share? I'd love to hear them.
Above: Terdsak Jandaeng. I dare you to tell him why his name is funny.
See also: Interesting Asian restaurant names
And of course there are place names such as Bang Sue, Baan Sukchoke, Dong Rak and Ban Pornpis. If you don't find those things even a teeny bit funny, you are way too mature for this blog post.
Bear in mind that because Thais have their own alphabet, there is no standard way of spelling Thai words and names in Roman script, so you will have many variations - pad thai can also be written as phat thai, for example.
Of course, a lot of the humour to be derived from Thai names comes from how you think they would or could be pronounced, rather than how they actually sound in real life. Thus names like Pachrapa or Chumphorn can be funny when you read them but not especially so when you hear them said by a Thai.
Other names, like Poonlarp, might require a little bit of cultural and/or pop cultural knowledge to get why they are funny - larp (or laap, or larb) is a kind of salad made from ground meat, so larp made from poon is an interesting concept.
Certain sounds that frequently turn up in Thai names are innately amusing, at least to my infantile mind. One is "-sak", which corresponds nicely to the English word "sack" meaning both a bag to carry things in, and a scrotum. Thus you have names like Choosak, Damrongsak, and my personal favourite of all Thai names, Terdsak. All of which can conjure up some nice mental images.
The other one of course, is "-porn", which is sometimes written as the less amusing "-pon". Which gives rise to names like Jesdaporn and Pornthip. Sometimes there is a convergence of rude-sounding words such as Pornsak. The best of all, however, is undoubtedly Supaporn. You really can't get better than that.
Of course, plenty of Thai names are just awesome without being naughty-sounding. There's something about the name of (politician) Somkid Jatusripitak which I just love. While names like Lada Engchawadechasilp (a former Miss World contestant) or Kejmanee Pichaironnarongsongkram (actress and singer)are admirable just for being so damned difficult to pronounce without considerable practice.
But lest you think I'm singling out Thai names, you can find examples of this sort of thing in pretty much every language and country. India, for example, has wonderful names like Jayant Bhatt, Deepa Dikshit, and Priti Kanthi. And it should be pointed out that while Thai names can seem funny to the English speaker, English names can be just as funny to Thais, depending on how they are pronounced (Thai is a tonal language, so there can be various ways of pronouncing a word). For example, according to this article at least, the name "Jim" sounds a lot like Thai slang for "vagina", while "Johnson" sounds like the term for "small penis".
Got some more names to share? I'd love to hear them.
See also: Interesting Asian restaurant names
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Cool player names to watch out for at World Cup 2010
The preliminary squads for the World Cup came out this week, and looking over the list of players for each team, I couldn’t help but smile at some of the names on offer.
There are some vaguely naughty ones for those of us who have the minds of 13-year-olds...
Waldo Ponce (Chile)
Rod Fanni (France)
Gaetan Bong (Cameroon)
Eric Choupo-Mating (Cameroon)
Hans-Jorg Butt (Germany)
And as always there are those African players whose parents named them after various adjectives they found appealing…
Brown Ideye (Nigeria)
Innocent Mdledle (South Africa)
Surprise Moriri (South Africa)
As always, there are those names that just seem really cool to try rolling off your tongue…
Faouzi Chaouchi (Algeria)
Lounes Gaouaoui (Algeria)
Ayodele Adeleye (Nigeria)
Ikechukwu Uche (Nigeria)
Siphiwe Tshabalala (South Africa)
But my favourite, for reasons I can't quite explain, is...
Georgie Welcome (Honduras)
Looking forward to it!
There are some vaguely naughty ones for those of us who have the minds of 13-year-olds...
Waldo Ponce (Chile)
Rod Fanni (France)
Gaetan Bong (Cameroon)
Eric Choupo-Mating (Cameroon)
Hans-Jorg Butt (Germany)
And as always there are those African players whose parents named them after various adjectives they found appealing…
Brown Ideye (Nigeria)
Innocent Mdledle (South Africa)
Surprise Moriri (South Africa)
As always, there are those names that just seem really cool to try rolling off your tongue…
Faouzi Chaouchi (Algeria)
Lounes Gaouaoui (Algeria)
Ayodele Adeleye (Nigeria)
Ikechukwu Uche (Nigeria)
Siphiwe Tshabalala (South Africa)
But my favourite, for reasons I can't quite explain, is...
Georgie Welcome (Honduras)
Looking forward to it!
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