Our Family: 2007

Saturday 17 November 2007

Deconstructing a Filipino Name

At home, I am called with different names. My mother and my sister would call me different names depending upon their moods. When my mom calls me imogena or bongkoyla it means that I’m in for a big trouble. If she calls me any of these: botngol’ otngol’ ngo-ngo, koyla, otingoli etc., she will be asking me to do chores. If she calls me baby girl or sweetie it means that I received gifts from my relatives or much better a cash and she wants me to loan it to her. When my sister calls me my ugly names it she’s going to play pranks on me. If she calls me “ngo” or “beh” she will ask for a favor. My father calls me with names which are hard to pronounce and spell, such as abudorf ang akodern.

The filipino’s manner of naming was similar to that of the native American Indians. Who named themselves after animals, places and events. Examples are Biglangyaman (instantwealth), Batongmalaki (bigstone) and Dayangdayan after dayan the Leyte dialect term for road. A famous example is kalaw (hornbill) exemplified by former Senator Eva Estrada Kalaw. I realized that these weird names were used as surnames. I remember myself complaining when my mother calls me bongkodin because it’s the sound of the surname of my values education teacher.

In my childhood, one of the things that I am not happy about was my boyish nickname ‘bong’. This is short for bongkoyla which was taken from the lyric of Yoyoy Villame’s song Buchikit. My ate’s name has Pochola which is also taken from the same song. I’m glad were only 2 siblings in the family or else my next sibling will be named “Ek-ek-ek also from the same song. Thus, people would always mistake me for a boy un to now. I wonder why my parents did not name me Maria instead which is very feminine. Speaking of Maria did you know why most of the girls in the Philippines were named Maria? Before, Catholic churches would only allow a baby girl to be baptized if Maria is included in the name, which is after the Virgin Mary’s name.
In highschool my friends started calling each other “Padi”. Even me is sometimes called by them as Padi which I hate because it reminds me of my dad’s friends whom he would address as Padi. They are usually the ones with big stomach and Bin Laden mustache. They would laugh hysterically which made me feel very scared. I thought Padi was an indigenous “bicolnon” term but I was wrong. Padi is a Bornean term for brother. It was adopted in Bicol because according to a legend, a mythical Bornean datu once settled in the Bicol region.

At present majority bear Americanized names. There is a good anecdote about Americanized names in the Bicol region. The story says that a boy and a girl were born as twins to a woman who was working abroad. An uncle happened to be at the hospital when the nurse asked for the names of the twin babies that would be recorded in the civil registry form. Since the mother was still asleep due to anestrhesia given during the ceasarian-section delivery, the uncle named the baby girl as Denise and the boy as Denephew.

Parents should give serious thoughts in choosing their children’s names. Or better still a law should be passed, allowing a child to have a temporary name up to certain age when the child is already old enough to choose his or her name.

Source:
How Filipino Babies are Named and Got to be Named
By Bobby M. Reyes
Pinoyonboard.com