목요일, 4월 07, 2005

What's In A Name?


I've come across a lot of Koreans with pretty wacky English names in my travels. I've met a class of first grade boys who wanted to be named after Greek deities. I've met a middle-aged professor of the Chinese language who insisted, "Please call me Rocky." And I've encountered stuck-up, princess like college students who used MacGuyver as their English nickname, but this takes the cake!
Some Korean guy has elected to name himself after either a Hispanic person, or the son of God. The Korean part of the sign offers no assistance as to which one it is. "은성" is a Korean name which is Romanized under "Jesus," and "목재" (木材) means lumber. So the rest of the sign offers no help.
I can kind of understand the desire to name oneself something totally bizarre when selecting a nickname in a foreign language. My friend uses 홍길동 as his Korean name. In addition to being a fictious Robin Hood character, 홍길동 is the Korean version of "John Doe," and his name appears on the credit cards in commercials. I on the other hand use the name, 정관우 (丁關羽). 정(丁) is a random Korean family name bestowed upon me by girlfriend. Her family name is also 정, though uses the character 鄭, so I decided to change the character I use. 관우 is the Korean reading of Guan Yu, a hero from the work 三國志.
So Jesus Eun Seong is not alone in his unusal foreign language name. In fact he's in pretty good company.