What is your name? (if available, include variation in native language.)

Jen Yee; 静宜; Jeng Yee (as pronounced in Cantonese); Jen, JY

 

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Do you know the meaning of your name? (Especially their cultural links?) Do you think it has any relationship with your cultural identity

I don't exactly know what my name represents word for word, other than literally "quiet" and basically something "good" in Chinese. The reason for my name stems from my dad watching Doraemon and seeing the female lead (Shizuka) and having a good impression of her being smart and nice. Hence, he chose my name which was later romanized into Cantonese rather than hanyupinyin because it would have been too generic and potentially "made fun of" according to my parents as Jing Yi sounds somewhat similar to "jingle", for example.

 

It reflects me and my identity especially as a Cantonese because my name is directly romanised from the Cantonese pronunciation, and also how my name is actually not chosen by my grandmother, unlike my brother's. Hence, it also reflects my family values in a way of putting more importance on the male grandson.

 

In a way, perhaps retrospectively, my name also reflects my introverted nature and my parents' hope for me to be also intelligent.

 

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What kind of experiences or issues have you encountered with other people (especially with people of a different cultures or nationalities in Singapore) regarding your name(s)? Or are there any of your personal experiences/stories with your name?

People are mostly confused whether or not it is Jenny (if I don't spell it out explicitly to them) or Jen Yi or some other spelling, and wonder if it is English or hanyu pinyin or not. So they'll ask about it in terms of how to spell, or what language it is supposed to be/what my Chinese name is, just to get a sense of how it came about.

 

Pronunciation is usually also an issue since this romanised version is not typical and is basically a mix between English and Cantonese jyutpinyin. And also, people may find it difficult to remember as a result, and just ask me what my Chinese name is instead, or just shorten to Jen. For Americans, they wonder whether Yee is a middle name or not.

 

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What is something about your name (especially related to your cultural identity) do you wish you could let them know?

It's (a romanization) from Cantonese~ and I'm super proud to be Cantonese.

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What do you know about the names from the cultures in Singapore (your own and others, which you might have heard from your friends)

For Chinese names, I think I'm fairly still familiar with the different variations of them, though sometimes I'm still thrown off since my understanding of Chinese dialects is not strong. This is not helped by the fact that we often do not see both Chinese characters together with the English surname to make that comparison or connection. If certain family groups change their surnames from Lee to Li (hanyu pinyin style) following the previous initiative by LKY, this just confuses things, because it makes it harder to differentiate whether or not the person has a Singaporean family background rather than coming from PRC.

 

I know very little about the Malay conventions of names other than what was described above and how "y" in names is actually essentially pronounced as "h".

 

I have no clue what naming conventions are for Indian names and am honestly not sure why/the rationale/the opinions of the Indian community their surnames (which arguably can be quite long) are always shortened. E.g. how do they fill in their full name in official forms if it is really that long? How do they determine which parts of the names are shortened or only once? (ie. S R Nathan vs. K Shanmugam)

 

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Curious questions or insights/thoughts you might have about your own or other cultures in Singapore or new immigrants (can be about names in particular or not)

Listed some in the previous questions.

 

• I'd like to ask the Malay community if they have any opinions on the names they are given since they are fairly common and if this affects their sense of identity since it is quite common e.g. meeting many other Muhammad/Mohamed and Taufiks.

  • How does only having their father's name as the surname affect their sense of family? E.g. since it's not reflected directly in their name how they are related to their grandparents technically.

  • Do they only sometimes fill in the "bin/binte" when doing official forms? e.g. how do you explain it in Caucasian cultures?

  • Is there a specific reason for some version of spellings for the same name e.g. Mohammed and Muhamad?

• For the Indian community, is there a reason why some families choose more Eurasian/English sounding names? Is it simply part of Anglicising names or they were still originally quite similar sounding already? E.g. Kelvinder