Canadian couple Andy Georgiades and Vivian Ng welcomed a son named Rex Oxton in September of 2009.
Tradition dictated that the baby be named after Andy’s late father, Mario, but Andy didn’t feel comfortable passing down his dad’s name. Instead, he came up with the idea of naming the baby Rex in honor of the family business, Rex Travel Agency.
Did it seem odd to name a child after a travel agency? “On the surface, that’s what it is but, really, it’s more of a tribute to my parents and the hard work that they did. They were immigrants, they came to Canada with nothing and managed to build a business which is responsible for giving us all that we have today.”
They’d originally wanted to give the baby a Chinese middle name, but couldn’t find one they liked. Instead they used Oxton, because the baby was born during the year of the ox.
I like the way this couple thought about names. The family name didn’t work out, the Chinese name didn’t work out…but they found symbolic substitutes for both.
Source: Rushowy, Kristin. “Baby name ‘Rex’ honours grandparents’ hard work.” Toronto Star 6 Feb. 2010.