My birth Surname was “teasable” – when we left my home state of Kentucky, where many relatives resided, I did not know that I would be subjected to taunts in elementary school in California because of my Family name. My older sisters knew and did what they could to change their homely first names to hipper monikers and quickly married nice young men with bland last names.
I was too young to figure out how to avoid the teasing and certainly too young to be married. But eventually that happened and while my surname now was not a matter of ridicule, it was usually mispronounced and certainly always misspelled.
Years later I divorced my husband and I had the choice of keeping my married name or recovering my maiden name. Neither seemed good options to me as both my Father and my husband had drinking problems and were abusive. To be reminded every day of what I had voluntarily left behind in my life was not acceptable to me.
I pondered on exotic as well as mundane new names to acquire and finally settled on the use of my middle name as a surname. That was possible only because it could be pronounced in several ways and because it was unique. Also, I was at the stage where I did not want to be found under a name search. Besides, that name really was me, not a made-up persona or the name passed down from my family or marriage.
I did the paperwork and in California, within two weeks and several hundred dollars, I became a new person = all the important documents, like Social Security, were easy to file and I moved to a different city for a fresh start.
That was more than 40 years ago. I did not remarry, out of choice, but I did begin to write a blog and had a few articles published. I did not have a pen name and I really wanted one. When I began to write memoir the names I had used in my young life were ones I did not want in print. I could not find one that suited me and then, on a trip to Thailand, I learned about a monk in a temple in Chiang Mai who gave new names to seekers after doing an astrology chart for them.
That seemed totally appropriate for my needs – a name that was lucky, even destined, to be mine – not just something picked out of a hat.
What I had learned was that names are not permanent, although I had always thought they were. When there are no children involved, a name did not have to follow me through life.
Names that are popular in one generation become old-fashioned in another. Names that were cute on a baby can look, indeed, childish on a resume 20 years later.
Nick names are hard to escape but at least that was not my fate. In Thailand, it is more than fate – it is the norm. Thai names are lengthy and the most common nick name heard is Lek – meaning small or little. Lek might be a man or a woman = the “baby” of the family or the smallest in stature. Many common nicknames given to children would be embarrassing in the West, but are endearing in Thailand.
So the Monk that was asked to provide a new name at Wat Jed Yod in Chiang Mai was not tampering with the family heritage when he gave a new name to a seeker – he was giving a lucky name, an auspicious name or even a glamourous name – but it still remained a nick name. It might be used in business or to enhance the qualities the person sought. And so it was with me.
I was happy enough with my legal (chosen) name and true to what the Thai’s believe, that new name had brought me luck and happiness. Numerology has the same concept – that taking a new name or even adjusting the spelling of a “real” name can make a difference in fate. Thus, a Jackie might begin to spell her name as Jacki, appearing a little more modern or hip to her generation.
For formal naming purposes, Thais do not adhere so much to the generational pattern of many westerners – it is not typical that a son would be named for a Father, a Grandfather or other relative out of respect to them or for the purposes of carrying on the family line. Here, astrologers, monks or fortune tellers are often consulted to be sure that the chosen name will not conflict with the date or even the time of birth as almost anything in life can bring about good or bad luck if conflict in sacred matters is involved.
“Names make us who we are”, says the resident Monk Vichian of Jet Yod temple, who presides over the appropriate re-naming of individuals who come to him for consultation. His statement, translated, basically says: “If someone is born at the same time, in the same room, on the same day, month and year as someone else, why are they not the same? Because of the name.”
He does not change a surname although that can be done via a simple government form, for the family name is still used legally throughout life. The change of a surname must involve the paperwork common to that procedure in the West.
What is deemed important is the first name – the one you will be known by. He states that the origins of surnames are blurry – sometimes they indicate the town where the family originated or a trade they followed. In Thailand, surnames were not even standardized until 1913 under King Rama V. Therefore, similar to Korean names like Park, wide sections of society had the same name. The first name, or the nick-name, was how one was identified.
Monk Vichian takes the name you have, does a formula via numbers on a grid, and decides what sort of name you should have – basically how many vowels and how many consonants. For a westerner, this is left more to their choice than to a Thai, for which he might suggest a name that suited him or her best. As he speaks only Thai, it would be hard for him to come up with an English name via his system.
Through his translator, he asked me why I wanted to change my name. I told him I wanted to write and use a name for writing that was different from my own name. He pondered that for a moment, looking at the grid of numbers he had created to check my vowels as well as the astrological chart I had had made at the temple prior to my consultation.
He told me the worst years of my life were over (I agreed completely) and that my surname (actually my middle name) was good for me. It certainly had been, since the day I made it my legal name.
But he told me that my first name would be better for writing if I chose a name starting with a vowel: A,E,I,O or U. I have been seeking that name without success so far. I know that when I find it I will feel as sure of it as I did when I chose my middle name to be my legal last name years ago.
