I've just come to realize what a common name we've given our daughter. There seems to be an abundance of Sophies and Sophias all born of that same generation.
Alarm bells should have gone off in my head right from the very start when, after birth, I ended up sharing a room with a woman who had also named her daughter Sophie (Sophie, Sophia, what's the diff? They're all variations on the same).
Up till this day, I think we've bumped into no less than 6 or more Sophies/Sophias while on our educational tour of Singapore. We've had Sophies/Sophias drop in for make-up lessons in our Sophia's regular classes. We've had trial classes in other Sophies/Sophias regular classes. We've also tried out a swim class with another Sophia in it and unbeknownst to us, until the day we went for class, signed up for a swim class with a Sophia in it too (no relation to the other Sophia nor ours)!
Most recently, Sophia (ours) was introduced to Sophie (not ours) in the seat in front of her (our Sophia), 10 months her junior, on the flight back from KL to S'pore. Confused yet? Well, luckily they didn't look a spot alike (9-month old Sophie is Ozzie and well, our 19-month old is quite purely M'sian).
Rizal blames it on The Da Vinci Code and one of the title characters, Sophia. He's convinced a whole horde of people named their daughters Sophia after reading or watching the movie.
This world is just a little too crowded with Sophies/Sophias at the moment. My name, Poh Ling, in fact, is such a common name that I went to school with a senior of the same name (spelled a little differently in English but written the same way in Chinese characters) and I've had people tell me they know another Poh Ling often enough. But the best was when I enrolled for college and I found myself face-to-face with another Ng Poh Ling not only in the same college but in the same programme and transferring to the same university as I was going to. I mean, come on, PAULINE NG POH LING. The. Exact. Same. Name.
I always wondered what possessed my parents to give me such a common name and when I was battling teen angst, somewhat resented my parents for naming me such. I'm wondering if Sophie will feel the same way.
Sigh...I've got another 12-15 years or so to find out.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
on the bright side, your kid will be normal.
imagine having to live with the names given out by hollywood celebrities...
I believe nicholas cage named his kal-el
(or any of jolie's kids)
When I gave Rizal the name I thought he would be the only Rizal! Imagine my disappointment when I found out there were numerous other Rizals born the same year! Anyway our Sophia is different - she has Meiyin too. And what did Shakespeare say about names?
What did Shakespear say about names?
Post a Comment