-^-for posterity-^-

i should compile a much more thorough list but i won’t. names in vietnam and america are different in so many ways.

first of all, most westerners have three names; we start off with our personal name, move to our middle name and end with our family name. things are the opposite here. people start off with their family name, move on to their middle name and end with their first name. this causes confusion and i am always called teacher jon instead of teacher moyer. famous people are referred to by their last name. for example, uncle ho was ho chi minh and ho was his last name.

names also mean very different things and are given for different reasons. one person i know is nguyen my hoa (i’m excluding all tones). nguyen is his family name. my is his middle name and hoa is his first name. he was given the name ‘my hoa’ because his father was in the my hoa district when he was born. a staff member of the university is named ha tho (i don’t know her last name). she’s called this because her family was from ha noi (thus the ha) and she was born in can tho (thus the tho). i guess a suitable name for me would be bluff mont moyer because i was born in bluffton ohio but my father’s family is from Montgomery county pa. i kinda like the ring of that. bluff mont moyer.

i have a friend named ngo. ngo is the chinese word for horse and he was so named because he was born in the year of the horse. one of my friends is named quoc nam which means southern country. many girls are named ngoc. this means jewel or pearl. i’m not exactly sure. another common name is hoa which is short for hoa binh which means peace. another name is dung, which means courage. another name is thuy which means water. another name is tri which means mind. another name is hanh which means good behavior. another name is hien which means meek, gentle. another name is tam which means heart/mind/feelings.

american names have completely different meanings. we don’t name our children after inanimate objects. all of our names are personality characteristics or something greater. my brother’s name, jason, means healer. my name, jonathan, means gift from god. while some of the names have similar meanings, (dung-courage, that’s similar to a western name) i’ve yet to meet a westerner with a name that means horse or pearl.