What’s in a name?

I’ve met many people that think Cynthia is an old English name. Actually, it comes from Greece. The meaning of the girl’s name Cynthia is “from Mount Kynthos”. It was one of the names of Artemis, the goddess of the moon, and it refers to her birthplace on Mt Kynthos.

The name Michael comes from the Hebrew name which means “He Who Is Like God”. Pretty good name. In the Catholic Church, Michael is the number one angel or Archangel. His feast day is September 29, a day he shares with the other top angels: Raphael and Gabriel. Across America many parishes are named for Saint Michael or Raphael or Gabriel. Michael is a common name in Spanish speaking countries (Miguel), Arabic and even Russian. My name John becomes Juan in Spanish and is also translated into other languages.

Colin means “Victory of the people”. The name is derived from Greek but became a common name in what is now Britain. Traditionally the “O” was soft but American’s have taken to say a hard “O” as in Colin Powell.

The Japanese have a lot of terrific names. Aika means “Love Song”. Keiko means “Blessed Child”.

I married into a Vietnamese family and each of the Catholic Vietnamese have a Vietnamese name and a Christian name from the Bible. I know a woman named “White Swan” in Vietnamese. Many of the names are terrific! My wife Lien is also called Mary Magdalene. Mary “M” was a friend of Jesus that may have had a jaded past. I tell people Mary Magdalene “started wrong but finished strong”. Both our parish priests are called John the Baptist. My mother-in-law is Mary and a Vietnamese friend is Joseph.

But there are some unusual Vietnamese names and this custom spills over into other Asian cultures. The last child of the family might be called “Last One”. I know of a family that has, translated from the native language, a “Last One” and a “Late Mistake”. A particularly tiny baby might be named “Little Peanut” or something like that.

The Vietnamese name “Hien” means “Gentle”.

I had a Thai friend that swore her father named her “Cucumber” because she was so small and cute. The Thai name “Wantanee” means “One Who Greets” or “Greeter”. Another Thai I knew a long time ago was named “Far,” which means sky or more correctly, “clear blue sky”.

Many African and African American names have meaning. A girl named Wangari should know that she has a name from Kenya that means “Leopard”. Mwamba is a Tanzanian name that means “Strong”. I met a man named Mr Erhunmwunse on April 2, 2007. His name means “My Prayers Have Come True” in his native Nigeria! Ethiopian names are among my favourites: Kalikidan means “promise,” Adonich means “healing,” Assefa is an Ethiopian name that means “expansive” or “to widen, “Zelalem” means”Forever” and Lulseged means “King”. A woman in Ethiopia might be named “Alem”. It means “World”.

The Bangladeshi name “Rowshanara” means “bright” and is my second favorite name from that part of the world after “Amina”. Amina means “Trusted One”. Rowshanara is actually the Persian or Farsi word meaning bright - even though the Rowshanara I know is from Bangladesh. Amin being the root word for “trust”. Amina is also a common name in Nepal. Another great Bangladeshi name for a woman is Farida. Farida means “Unique”. Another man’s name is “Sariful” which means “Modest”.

Let’s get back to Rowshanara. My favorite Rowshanara works in a 7-11 near my house. She is short and thin and “bright” and very beautiful. This past Sunday I stopped for milk at the 7-11 and found Rowshanara trapped in the refrigerated food case. Instead of refilling the case from behind, she opened the front door for a front fill. She is so small that she needed to stand on the bottom shelf. She is so thin that the glass door closed! I knocked on the glass door and said, “So this is what a refrigerated Bangladeshi Rowshanara looks like!”

I freed her and she couldn’t stop laughing!