So I just
got news that my aunt and uncle up in Seattle having another child. Congrats to
them! I asked if they knew if it was a boy or girl, and they don’t know. I
asked if they had a name yet, they asked me to help. So, as of now, I
have no information on my newest cousin. The name part got me thinking. I
always wondered how media could influence the name you gave your child. Then I
realized that I, myself, was a sad (no literally, it’s sad) result of media
affecting my name.
So here’s
the story. My parents were watching a movie in a movie theater, knowing that I
was about to get slapped into the world soon. The movie was the 1994 movie
“Legend of the Fall”, a Brad Pitt movie about life in the west during WWI. Brad
Pitt’s character was named…you guessed it. My parents liked the name Tristan,
so they replaced their previously decided name, Ian, aside in favor of
Tristan.( Tristan means sad, so that’s the sad part of the story. Other than
that, it was pretty good.)
(What is it
with me and R-rated movies? I like Gladiator, Deadpool, Swiss Army Man(look to
other post). Well, blah blah blah, you have been warned)
At first, I was a little annoyed that my parents were a bit lazy to name me
after a cowboy played by Brad Pitt, but it turns out, they spent months upon
months formulating a Chinese name for me, even enlisting my paternal grandpa,
who studies Chinese calligraphy. They eventually came up with 林思謙. Of course, you probably
can’t read that, so it says “Lin Xi Qian”. Lin being the word for forest, which
is my last name, Lam. The words Xi Qian means “to think about respect and
humility.” Those three characters pretty much symbolize what I am supposed to
live for. My name is unique in Chinese especially because it is a concept, not
a concrete object, which is more common. For example, 黄远山, which is “Wong Yuan San”, Wong meaning yellow as a last name,
and Yuan San meaning “far mountain.”(Shout-out to Mr. Wong by the way.)
So why
did they find my name from a movie of all places? I think it just shows the
influence of movies in our lives. The media presented to us engraves itself
into our minds, thus engraving it into your lives. Nowadays, almost no names
are original unless you want this plastered on your chest during interview day.
Because
there are no more unique original names, people look elsewhere for information.
In my case, it was a movie. In other cases, it could pop up on social media,
show up in a magazine. Maybe your parents support Donald Trump so much they
name you Donald T. Johnson. The point is media engraves itself in our minds,
then subsequently into our lives.
Hahaha, I think that's cool to be named after a Cowboy though. Overall, that's interesting that media like a movie explicitly influenced your parents to name you Tristan. That just shows how much influence media can have on someone's life, whether you are actually aware of it or not.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic that you chose to write about. I am personally named after a man in 1st Chronicles (a book in the bible) I also know that a number of our classmates have biblical names. Would you consider parents that named their children after biblical characters to be naming their children based on the media? Although it doesn't seem to be media to some of us, the messages in the bible were to ultimately portray a message to a large amount of people, which is what media is.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement about the bible being a form of media. It definitely isn't seen as a mainstream form of media, like the internet or facebook, but it is a form of spreading information to many people. So yes, technically naming your child from the bible is a form of media influence. However, an argument could be made that it is not an influence of media but an influence of beliefs that name a child after the bible.
DeleteTristan! This is an awesome post idea! The concept of naming your child is interesting because parents are essentially giving their child an identification for their entire life. Although it's quite sad, but it's definitely true most parents get name ideas from media, whether it be Hollywood or other forms. I think at the end of the day, all names are more or less influenced by media. Unless the parents pieced together their favorite letters and made a whole new word. Then again, their favorite letters could also be influenced by media. Anyways, this is an extremely interesting concept to think about. This makes me wonder what my Chinese name means, because I have no clue. So glad you posted this!
ReplyDeleteCompletely unrelated to the discussion, your name means "soft chih". Chih is a plant root used in medicine. "Wong" means king, i'm assuming you knew that already.
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