My Boy and His Comics

The Naming Game

Probably, creating a name for a person is one such exciting but rare job that you may only have just a very few chances in a lifetime. I had one such opportunity in 2000 when my son was born. The old Cantonese saying "唔怕生壞命，最怕改壞名 (having given a bad name is worse than having born a poor life)" does have practical wisdom. A name is a lifetime companion, and because it keeps reminding you of who you are, it has to have a meaning.

My first criterion for my son's name is simplicity. At least, he won't complain about spending a significant part of his life writing his name. I started looking up the Analects of Confucius 論語, hoping to get some inspiration for a good name, something that is easy to write and reminds him of the fundamentals of life. I eventually settled with "以正" from "子帥以正，熟敢不正" which is from the section of 顏淵. I found this simple phrase about righteousness particularly meaningful. And this is it! Done. [Twelve years later, in 2012, the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao cited this phrase during the ceremony of appointment of Mr CY Leung as the Chief Executive of Hong Kong.]

The standard English transcription for the words 以正 in Hong Kong under the Wade-Giles system is "Yee Ching". But I decided to play a little pun. The Book of Changes 易經, known to the western world as "I CHING" which sounds close enough to 以正, is equally important in our culture and it contains one deepest Chinese philosophy that the only real constant is change. I picked "I CHING" instead of Yee Ching.