Namesake

Here in Sarawak you do get some amazing names. Some are perhaps due to the registration officer’s hearing impairment like Ali Sabat (Elizabeth) while others are perhaps related to their parents wanting to name their children like world leaders like Saddam Hussein and Ahmad Obama.

There are also some controversial ones like Allah and some perhaps define the person, for example Gian Anak Gila. Regardless, these sort of things while may subject someone to ridicule it is nevertheless names given by their own parents and are in fact carried with pride. For that, they are worthy of more praise than some of the people back home who adopt nicknames because their original ones were not ‘cool’ enough.

Like Arrora Salwa (surely her own mother didn’t give her that name) once said “One should treasure the names given to them by their parents because invariably there is a good meaning behind it.”