we can't choose what we're born with, but we can choose what we live by, and what we die as.
I didn't get to choose my first name. I guess that's also the case for you. your parents could come and ask you what you want to be named as when you can't even walk yet, let alone speak (although it would have been paranormal and surreal if you managed to answer). we just don't have much control over many things in life. names is also a big one.
sang
this is my first name, my real name, my legal name. honestly, I didn't enjoy it that much. teachers get my gender wrong. friends make fun of it. it made me question my gender on many occassions. however, such times are over, and I start to enjoy it a bit more for the following reasons.
it's close to the end
in vietnamese classrooms, we have this thing where teachers call students up by alphabetical order to check if they've studied lessons from the previous class. to be brutally honest, it sucks. it isn't too safe to have your name at the far end anyways, as they can go the other way around. sang is just perfect, as it isn't right in the middle, but among the least picked up places. thanks to my name, I survived middle school.
people don't pronounce them wrong in english
pretty self-explanatory I guess. by naming your kid toneless names, you save your kids chances of being mispronounced by people and those people from the effort of learning to pronounce it right.
it means blood in french
and the past tense of sing in english. I love exploring translingual meanings of a single word, and it's fun when one of the words happens to be my name.
one of my nickname is also derrived from this name (sanglit). also called s@ngl!t. my first logo came with the @ and the ! interlocked. you can still see this symbol signed at the end of artworks that I posted on this website.
mary
this is a bit different to sang. of course I already knew how to write and speak when I start learning english, I wasn't smart enough to come up with a name myself. I remember the english center founder guy saying hi to me and asking me some small talk questions. then he just decided that I'm going to be called mary. did I oppose? I didn't. I was pretty cool with it.
until cambridge movers rolls around. there is this one exercise where we have to match the name with the person. there are also exervises where we have to read about tedious weekend activities of some very british kids (drink tea huh?). thanks to being such a popular name, "mary" shows up in most exercises, I swear. one time, she was seen under the table doing some suspicious things. the other time, she looked like she wanted to kiss peter or john or jack, which are, well, also my classmates' names. I can't remember all the OTP that cambridge movers led me in.
another reason why the name annoyed me was because of its affliation with christianity. virgin mary. like c'on why would I want to be stuck with chastity as a virtue for the rest of my life? no, just no. I changed it after my self-awareness finally developed.
sakura
my wibu ages. naruto. girls like sasuke. I was among one of them. period. I don't remember how long it lasted, but I swear it was under a year.
lily
I came up with this name when I was working on my first-ever wix website. I don't remember how I came up with it, probably was because I was obsessed with italy and its national flower was the lily. or maybe I just googled top girl names and read their meanings and go with the name that I think fits. I used to use that approach to a lot of things in life back then. for example, if I want to find the perfect country, I wouldn't bother to learn about their history, culture or people, I would just go and look at the rankings for "greenest" cities and nations. I was lazy back then, I took big shortcuts.
one of the resons why the name stayed was because alan walker's song lily and lily allen, the singer of love, rosie's OST.
in retrospect, I think this name really lacked character and livelihood. it went away went I found my next name.
lyss
I love TEOTFW. I love Alyssa and James. I FUCKING LOVE ALYSSA'S BADASS ENERGY. (if only I had a bestie called James, we could be saying what and ok together). so here comes the name. I cut off the As for brevity and ease of pronouncing. funny enough, people start thinking that it is liz from elizabeth. it was a bit annoying as I didn't really like being confused with queens of england. I know queen elizabeth i is smart and all that but it would be pathetic to die from your own mercury makeup.
I still enjoy this name because it sounds close to liszt. I can't play any of his pieces but I still think that fact is impressive enough. I love liebestraum by the way.
similar to how sang means blood in french, the pronounciation of lyss (lisu) means squirrel in japanese. how great cause now I can eat that giant acorn that is college board.
I still go by this name though. it will be such a name that marks my high school age. it will expire and go to the museum as soon as I finish high school though.
eugene truong
the first name (eugene) was not my first french name. I looked for one, and reluctantly accepted lucciene. however, when I least expected it, I came upon it while watching rapunzel's videos (shoutout to eugene fitzherbert!) another reason why I thoroughly enjoy this name was because sufjan stevens, one of my favorite authors back then had a song called eugene in his album carrie and lowell.
I came up with the last name when I first had a boyfriend. no he didn't ask me to do it, but I just wanted to give him extra exclusivity. I created the 2nd or 3rd website by this name, and dedicated it to him and him only. it was a mistake. this name marked the age of codependency in our relationship, which was not healthy. it expires as soon as we break up.
dea
also the name I'm going by right now, and also the name I intend to go by in college. I came up with this name intuitively. I just take the I off IDEA, and end up with Dea. it didn't really kill it at first. however, it stayed, and it relate more and more to me as I heal and become more of myself. I was delighted to find out that it has Latin origins. it means Goddess in Latin anyways. let's see what the web has to say about it.
Dea is a feminine name of primarily Latin origin that celebrates the beauty of change. Forged from the Latin dea—the inspiration for the word "deity"—Dea means "goddess" and is most synonymous with Dea Dia. As the Roman goddess of fertility and growth, Dea Dia received much honorary worship alongside the revered Ceres in the hopes of a bountiful harvest. And while there is little doubt that young Dea will be subject to much admiration in their lifetime, the name's potential Irish origins ensure the added gift of good fortune. As a variation of the ancient clan name Deághaidh_, Dea could mean "good fate" from the elements _deagh, "good," and ádh, "luck."
Dea Dia is sometimes identified as Ceres, or the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Demeter, which is also the god for Virgo and symbolizes the earth. when I found out this, I was so glad to see how my life was coming together, starting with only a name.
for some reason, this name aligns beautifully with my philosophy in life. I celebrate change. I don't want to be a princess or damsell in distress, I want to be an independent woman that has her own joy and her own world. this rocks even more considering that I'm also attending a women's college. it looks like I won't be changing my name any time soon.
my only wish is that it won't be confused with DEA, or the US's Drug Enforcement Administration.
my other less obvious names
xie lien (谢连)
my chinese name, it literally means thank lotus.
lucienne
came up with this name using the similar approach to "lily". it means light in french. lucienne boyer is such a bop.
trang
I love her music.
vân
I love her music.
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