Sunday, November 12, 2017

Origin Story

How did you get your name? 

After our discussion in class about the origins of our names, I realized that I really had no clue where mine came from. So I asked my parents and they said in Latin the name Olive means peace. They loved the meaning of it so they adapted it to be more feminine, and came up with Olivia. Side note, Olivia was also one of the top ten girl baby names in 2001 (that's probably why I know like 6 other Olivia's). I became more intrigued with with idea of everyones 'origin story' so I began to ask around. One of my friends was named after the main character of the Home Alone movies, Kevin. My friend Monica's parents switched her grandmother's middle and first name from Helen Monica to Monica Helen. This got to be so much fun that I decided to interview some of my friends! Here's what they said...

"My parents were looking through a name book with their friends and they didn't know any bad Natalie's, and they liked the sound of it." - Natalie Eighmey

"My name comes from a fortune teller who was really famous for like politicians in Korea, and my grandparents spent 2,000 dollars to ask him what my name should be based on my birthdate and time I was born, and my name Jin Seok was decided." - James "Jin Seok" Ha

"My Chinese name, Mei-Ling, was chosen because it's the traits my parents wanted me to have. Mei means beautiful jade and Ling means musician. My American name was chosen because my parents liked Olivia Newton John." - Olivia Mei Ling Tu 

"My name is from my grandfather because it is tradition for the first born son in the Levant to have the name of his grandfather and his father's name second. So my name is George Kayed, my grandfathers name is George, and my fathers is Kayed. It really translates to "Azar the son of Kayed, grandson of George."  - George Azar

"My mom didn't want to name me with anyones name she already knew, so she mixed letters together that she liked and got Mallory." - Mallory Bouque 

"Won means lasting forever and Young means spirit." - Won Young Kang 

"My name is my dads family's surname (Oh) and then there's a list of what my middle character of my name is suppose to be, which is Min, and my parents got to choose the last, Suk." - Brian "Min Suk" Oh 

"My dad's coworker suggested it and said that it means 'protector' and my parents really liked it. It also has the same first sound of my Korean name." - Jamie Kim 

"My father was illiterate and found a group of words in the Bible that ended up being Pilate. He was to stubborn to change it so now i'm named after the guy that crucified Jesus." - Pilate Dead 

"It's kinda weird but I breast fed beyond the years that children are suppose to, so I got the nickname Milkman." - Milkman Dead 

How did you get your name? Leave a comment down below! 


2 comments:

  1. Olivia I loved this post! It was really interesting to learn how other people got their names and how their own cultures play a role in naming. I'm pretty sure my parents just chose my name because it can translate easily into Bulgarian and fits the Greek origin theme my dad's name has.

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  2. Great post! It's really interesting to see how some of our friends were named. My name was supposed to be Emma (I'm not sure why), but my mom's friend had a girl two weeks before I was born and named her Emma, so my name was changed to Emily.

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