Parents, fined for having baby, name baby after fine

Vietnamese 5-dong banknote

In 1987, Mai Van Cán and his wife, Do Thi Vân — a couple from Quang Nam province in central Vietnam — welcomed their fifth child.

The problem?

Several years earlier, Vietnam had put a two-child policy in place.

So, soon after the newborn arrived, the family was fined 6,500 dong (Vietnamese currency) by the government.

Mai was upset about this — his wife’s pregnancy had been unplanned, and he had to borrow money to pay the fine. In a fit of resentment, he named the baby boy Mai Phat Sáu Nghìn Ruoi, which loosely translates to “fined six thousand five hundred” (or, more precisely, “fine of six thousand and a half”).

Here are the definitions of each component of the given name:

In the late 1990s, local government officials tried to persuade Mai to change his son’s name, because the boy was being “constantly teased” by classmates.

He refused.

A few years later, they tried again.

This time, he relented.

So, in September of 2005, Mai Phat Sáu Nghìn Ruoi — now in his late teens — was renamed Mai Hoàng Long, meaning “golden dragon.”

(I had to remove most of the Vietnamese diacritics from this post because they don’t render properly on my site, unfortunately.)

Sources:

Image: Adapted from South Vietnam 5 Dong 1955 (public domain)

Baby name story: Solander

Solander Island (in the distance)
Solander Island (in the distance)

The small Canadian city of Port Alberni, which is located on Vancouver Island, finally welcomed its first baby of 2023 on the morning of January 4.

Born at West Coast General Hospital to parents Andre-Anne and Joseph Danshin, the baby boy was named Solander Laurent Danshin.

Why “Solander”?

He was named after Solander Island, an ecological reserve off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island. Both his parents work at sea, said Andre-Anne.

“It’s a name that resonates a lot with us,” she said.

The small, rocky island of Solander — which was named in honor of Swedish botanist Daniel Solander (1733-1782), who had been a pupil of Carl Linnaeus — was designated as a reserve in 1971 in order to “protect large colonies of breeding seabirds and their habitat.”

The Swedish surname Solander is made up of the elements sol, meaning “sun” in Swedish (and various other languages), and andros, meaning “man” in Ancient Greek. (Andros is also an element in Andre-Anne’s compound first name.)

What are your thoughts on the name Solander?

P.S. Solander has an older brother named Beaufort.

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Image: Adapted from Solander Island by Padraic Ryan under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Name quotes #115: Keyden, Yizhar, Aleta

double quotation mark

To kick off the new year, let’s check out a new batch of name quotes!

From an article in The Catholic Standard about students at a Maryland high school (found via Abby):

Keyvar Smith-Herold of the class of 2022 at DeMatha Catholic High School smiled as he explained the inspiration for his name, noting that his father Vincent Smith works as a locksmith.

“That’s why ‘Key’ is in our names,” he said, shedding light on the origin of his first name and that of his twin sister, Keydra, and also their older brother Keyden, a 2018 DeMatha graduate.

From the book The Gender Challenge of Hebrew (2015) by Malka Muchnik:

Most Hebrew proper names, especially those used in recent decades, consist of existing words and therefore have specific meanings. This fact helps us see the ideas associated with male or female names, and serves as evidence of what is expected of them.

(The author listed several female names associated with flowers and gemstones — such as Rekefet, meaning “cyclamen,” and Bareket, meaning “agate” — then continued…)

Even more suggestive are female names denoting personal qualities, such as Yaffa (‘pretty’), Tova (‘good’), Aliza (‘joyful’), Adina (‘delicate’), Ahuva (‘beloved’), Metuka (‘sweet’) and Tmima (‘innocent’).

[…]

As opposed to them, we find male names which have the form of a future verb, and from this we can infer the expectations from them: Yakim (‘he will establish’), Yarim (‘he will raise’), Yaniv (‘he will produce’), Yariv (‘he will fight’), Yiftax (‘he will open’), Yig’al (‘he will redeem’), Yisgav (‘he will be great’) and Yizhar (‘he will shine’).

A name story from the recent Washington Post article “Playing the name game” by John Kelly:

Aleta Embrey’s older brother loves to say that her name came from the funny papers. And it did, specifically “Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur,” which still runs in The Washington Post.

“Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles is a major figure in the comic strip,” Aleta wrote. “My dad liked the name.”

It is a lovely name, much better than being named, say, “Olive Oyl.”

The Subban siblings

The Subban brothers Jordan, Malcolm, and P. K. (at the 2013 NHL Draft)
Jordan, Malcolm, and P. K. Subban

I’ve only recently started watching hockey, so the first time I heard about Canadian player P. K. Subban was when he announced his retirement a few months ago.

He’s not the only player I know of who goes by his initials. One of the Colorado Avalanche players is called J. T. Compher, for instance. But I’d say P. K. has the most intriguing set of initials. (In contrast, the combo “J.T.” is so common that some parents simply register “JT” as a legal name.)

So, what do Subban’s initials stand for?

Here’s the answer, courtesy of Sports Illustrated:

P.K. stands for Pernell Karl. When he was born, his mother, Maria, thumbing through a movie magazine in her hospital bed, spotted a story about actor Pernell Roberts. The name clicked. Pernell for Adam Cartwright from Bonanza. Karl for his father.

When he was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in 2007, P. K. was asked what his initials stood for, and he cheekily replied: “Penalty-killer.” (In fact, you do hear hockey announcers say “PK” — an acronym for “penalty kill” — during televised games sometimes.)

P. K. Subban has four siblings: two older sisters and two younger brothers. Both brothers are also professional hockey players with hyphenated names:

  1. Nastassia (pronounced nah-STAH-zee-ah)
  2. Natasha
  3. Pernell-Karl, or “P. K.”
  4. Malcolm-Jamaal, or “Malcolm” (drafted in 2012 by the Boston Bruins)
  5. Jordan-Carmichael, or “Jordan” (drafted in 2013 by the Vancouver Canucks)

I have to imagine that Malcolm’s name was somehow inspired by actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played Theo on The Cosby Show, though I haven’t found any proof of this yet.

What are your thoughts on these names? And, have you spotted any interesting sets of initials recently?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of the 2013 NHL Draft telecast