response 18 of 80:

Jan 9 18:58 UTC 1998

re: resp:16

Thats only partly true, Jemmie.  English names do have meaning, but mostly
the names we use were not originally English, and so the meaning aren't
evident as they are in Chinese.

And most of the names have been in use so long that the name and the word have
often diverged dramatically.  (I love names and have spent long hours learning
the meanings and origens of names, both given and familial.  It's a hobby.)
;)

response 20 of 80:

Jan 9 23:28 UTC 1998

re 16:  Actually, many western names have literal meaning.

  Mary = 'bitter'  (probably comes from myrrh (sp?))
  Philip = 'lover of horses'
  Ethel = 'regal' or 'noble'
  Cynthia = 'of the moon'
  Celeste = 'of the stars' or 'of the heavens'
  Arnold = 'manly'
  William = 'will, helm' (helmet)
  

That's just for starters.

response 22 of 80:

Jan 10 17:04 UTC 1998

While we are waiting for the news from Meihan (?) 's parents, I am curious
about naming customs in other countries.  Meihan's mother, like all (most?)
other Chinese women, did not change her family name upon marriage.  The family
name comes before the given name.  Her family name is spelling Xiang, her
husband's is Zhao, the son's Zhao.  I will ask them which name the daughter
gets.  In Swedish daughters and sons get family names like Gunnarsson and
Gunnarsdatter (son and daughter), in the Slavic languages family names have
different endings for male and female (Novak but Novakova).  In Russian the
middle name is a patronymic, formed from the father's name plus an ending.
In Macedonian a woman's middle name before marriage is her father's given
name, but after marriage it is her husband's given name, in other words a
woman keeps her given name and adds her husband's whole name (minus his middle
name).  What at the customs in South America, Africa, elsewhere in Asia?  Come
to think of it, what are the new customs here?  If children with hyphenated
names (one from each parent) get married to someone else with a hyphenated
name, what name do they use?  Where both parents keep their own family names,
are the children always given the father's family name?  Judging from the
situation in my college reunion publication, things are still chaotic.  Any
ideas?

response 24 of 80:

Jan 10 19:44 UTC 1998

I like it to be entirely up to the whim of the individuals, and would not
like the imposition of a new national naming convention. This is one situation
where whim is better than order. After all, we do all get a social security
number....  8^}. The example other gives of a couple choosing a new surname
is marvelous. Why not? There are other ways of keeping records of genetic
relationships, which only the medical profession really need be concerned
about.

response 26 of 80:

Jan 10 22:30 UTC 1998

Not only do a lot of people mispronounce my name, I think it is correct to
mispronounce my name on the first try.  If you don't know my gender, "Jan"
as in "Janet" is certainly the best guess.  If you do know my gender, "Yun"
is probably the formally correct pronounciation for most people.  But unless
you are speaking German, I prefer the Americanized pronounciation of "Yon".
However, I have no cause to expect people to know that, so I'm not bothered
in the least when people don't mispronuce my name the same way I do.

response 28 of 80:

Jan 11 02:53 UTC 1998

My first guess for Jan's name was 'jan-as-in-janet', but I wouldn't have
guessed 'yun'.
(Do you pronounce the last name 'wolter' or 'volter'?)

response 30 of 80:

Jan 11 06:38 UTC 1998

I've always thought it to be "Yon."  I'm sure dang can tell us all about
having his name mispronounced.  When a teacher pronounces his brother's name
on the first try, it's major news.  

response 32 of 80:

Jan 11 18:45 UTC 1998

My roommate wants to point out that it is helpful to have a last name that
people do not know how to pronounce, because that way you know when someone
calls and mispronounces it that they don't know you and are probably trying
to sell something.  Or if they use the full given name instead of the nickname
they got you off of a list.  (My roommate's phone listing is J. Deigert, and
it is a sure tipoff that they are selling something when they call for Mrs.
Deegert).  If you want to track where your junk mail came from, you can make
up a different given name each time you give your name out.  We made up Sheila
Loth for She, the Lady of the House, which has taken on a life of its own,
changing to the spelling Shelia without our help.  Sheila lives with Herman,
who is no longer getting any mail for some reason.  (If you want to stop
getting any junk mail, call Nancy Stone at the Solid Waste Dept. and ask for
a list that I made up and which they send out to people who complain to the
post office).
Pobojewski is Polish - po-bo-yef-ski.  Stress the e.  Boj has something to
do with battle.  A boyar (the old nobility) was someone whose ancestors had
won power by fighting.  Does anyone have a last name with an interesting
meaning?  Or  Slavic last name that they would like to know the meaning of?
(I am still waiting to hear about Meihan.)

response 34 of 80:

Jan 11 22:17 UTC 1998

 (Incidentally, I feel like adding this about last names:  
        My favorite solution to the problem of names when having kids or
    being married is a creative combination of the respective last names.
    Unfortunately, "Hood" really doesn't combine with things particularly
    well...  But, as another example.. for Jan and Valerie's names for kids
    I'd think of such last names as "Matters.")

response 36 of 80:

Jan 11 23:36 UTC 1998

Woska in Polish means wax.  Woszczek is ear wax.  A woszczak was probably a
person who worked with wax, or a candle-maker, as in English Chandler, of
which the phone book lists 29.  sz is pronounced sh, cz is ch (church) and
w is v.  Voshchak, stressed on the first syllable, a as in father.

Polish does not generally have double consonants as in mattis.  Perhaps this
came from something like Matthias?  Polish equivalent might be Matias, and
the last name would be equivalent to Mathews (person whose father is Mathews,
as in John Mathews being John the son of Mathews).  The phone book has all
sorts of variants of this one:  Mate, Mates, Mateja, Matejak, Matelic
(?related), Matewicz

I forget just where I was in this, having received my first chat call.
Back to the phone book.  I find both Mate and Mates and Matej and Matejak and
Matewicz and Matey and Mateja and Mathai (Matthew) and Mathay and Mathe and
Matheison, etc.  My guess is that the Polish name was Matej (misspelled in
English as Matey and Mathe and Mathay) or perhaps some longer variant.  I find
also Mathey, Matheys, Mathia, Mathiak, Mathias, Mathis, Mattes.  Maybe the
Jewish name was spelled with an -s, as in one of the above, or the official
at the border just picked the closest equivalent English-sounding name. 
Anyway, at some point in the distant past one of your ancestors may have been
named Mathew or Matej or the like.  My best friend in high school had a last
name Bloom, shortened at the border from Bachmutsky, because they were
standing in line behind a Bloom.   See page 276 and the beinning of 277 for
more names +(Universal phone book 1997-98), including Mattic, Matthies,
Mattice, Mattis, Mattison, Matts, Mattschek, Matwiejczyk, Matwiczhyk, Matzke.

response 38 of 80:

Jan 12 00:28 UTC 1998

Come to think of it, Matthew does not sound like an old Jewish name.  I would
guess the original was Mattes or Mattis (which are probably both the same
thing spelled differently, since Yiddish was written in the Hebrew alphabet
and I don't think spelled out the vowels).  This would be 'son of Matte'. 
Any experts on Yiddish?
Colleen McGee says that her name means 
'young girl son of Gee' and that daughter of would be ni Gee, but this is not
used much except on some of the islands.  (McGee is Scots-Irish, which is the
Scots who emigrated to Ireland during the clearances, when people were evicted
to make room for sheep during the Industrial Revolution).

response 40 of 80:

Jan 12 00:47 UTC 1998

Should this item be linked to the language conference, where it probably
belonged in the first place?  If so, who does this?  The FW for this
conference (Katie Geddes, who has not read mail since Dec. 22) or the FW for
the language conference?