Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Promiscuous

music

When will you marry? This year? Next year? Sometime forever?
Who will you marry? Rich? Poor? Beggar? Thief?
Which car will you enter on your wedding day? Wheelbarrow? Bicycle? Danfo? Mercedes?


I think the good answers were Mercedes, rich, sometime forever,...actually i was never really sure what "sometime forever" or "lailai forever" meant, or if we were saying something else that actually made sense. This was the song for a skipping game, so for example if you stopped/tripped on poor, then I guess the other kids had a good laugh. Or if you answered "this year" - a little too young.

The sun is back, and the hopefulness and happiness of the season makes me think about who I will marry. So many exciting choices, it's ridiculous that you're expected to stick with one forever.
So...
I'm building a marriage team
One Rufus, one Nadal, maybe Nadal AND Federer. I dumped Tiger years ago, before he dumped me thank-you-very-much. My boyfriend Raj reminds me that Rufus is "flaming gay." Hmmm.

I saw de Villepin on TV the other day - brilliant guy. He'll be the "seasoned" one in my little fraternity.

Might as well throw in a physicist. They have sharp minds and know something I want to know. I know a few hot physicists. Maybe a good mathematician for the same reasons.

I still like my Portuguese/Angolan João Ricardo from last year...why isn't his career as stellar as his World Cup showing? Well, I would love to help him figure that out - on the coast of Portugal.

There really should be a Nigerian on this list for the whole shared homeland and possibly shared language thing, but I like never meet them.

Who did I forget?

I have baby names too.
A number of Yoruba names - WURA (treasure/gold?) and AYO (joy) as in Ayokunnu/Ayokunu - I knew lovely girls by those names when I was a kid. I like the fact that Yoruba names are largely gender neutral.

FELA is another, as in Fela, although I still don't know what it means. (Let me know if you do.) There's also INULEWA from family lore. It was my grandfather's nickname, and means inside + is + the value.

In non-Yoruba names, there's ANNELISE - a complex character from my favourite film - and ALEXANDER/ALEXANDRA of course.

There's COCO - not just the name of a fashion icon, "Aunt" Koko was a super-cool neighbour when I was a kid living in one of the world's most beautiful places.

I must really like light, because I also have CLAIRE, LUMIÈRE, and CANDÈS in my top-ten.

My runners up are
LUDWIG, AMADEU,
ANNA,
APRIL, MAY,
NERO, NEO,
NEHRU, SUPRIYA,
UMA, MALA,
AMEERA, SAMIRA/SAMEERA/SAMIR,
FARDOOS/FARDOWS - I'll have to be feeling really high to name my kid "paradise, as in the Muslim's afterlife" but giddy happens.

I've always thought Daniel was such a good, fortright person's name, Goke a very pretty boy, and Jonathan a good and loyal boy - this comes from David and Jonathan when I was a kid, I think I was the narrator and, thanks to my mum, the best dressed narrator ever in my pink butterfly dress which I just loved. The tall boy in my class, a complete sweetheart named Efanga, played Goliath. There were "crowds" of Philistines and Israelites. Anyway.

When I was more Christian, my favourite names were Jonathan, Joshua, Joel. I knew their meanings. I don't know if I picked girl's names. Oh cool, I was really young, so those were possibly names for the love-of-my-life, not the kids. I still don't know why people promise to marry only one - that can't be easy.

It's important that all the names don't mean something silly in a major world language; they may have to go to school somewhere exotic and I want to be kind. It's not easy to find names that fit the bill actually: if you try to exclude all the words that translate into giggle-worthy words in say 10 major languages - no funny body parts, no unpronouncable letters.

Nick is a big joke of a name in Arabic. The Norwegian Kora and Tone were small jokes. Kora is a (sports) ball, Tone is tunafish.

Rufus would need to sell more records (opera or whatever) to get people to start naming human children that again, since it seems to have taken hold as a dog's name - why oh why?
The letters "gb" and "kp" in Southern Nigeria, nobody in the West has those. And the Arabs make "p" into "b" - there were two blackbirds sitting on a wall: one named Bita, one named Ball.

As the joke went when we were in school, the phroblem with the pheephle phrom the northern phart oph Nigeria is that they do not know how to phronounce the letters eph, phee, and phee. So f, p, and v, are sort of dangerous letters too.

Wow, I need to get a job.

14 comments:

t said...

Stuff about the names, found around the web e.g. 20000-names.com , babynames.com , babynamesworld.com , thinkbabynames.com , zelo.com , etc.

Ludwig, as in Beethoven, is German and means famous warrior. Related to the names Louis, Lluis, Clovis, Lewis, Lluisa, Louisa, etc.

Amadeu is the Catalan name of a friend's brother. It means God's love and is related to the Latin Amadeus, as in Mozart, Amadieu, Amadeo, Amati, Amado, etc.

Annelise is the Danish name of Christoffe's mother in the Per Fly movie "Arven" or The Inheritance. It's related to the German Anneliese, to Anelia, Anelie, Annalisa, etc.
Anna is related to the Jewish Hannah, which means grace or favour.
Liese is a German pet name form of Elizabeth, which means my God is an abundance/my God is an oath.

Alexandra/Alexander means defending men.

Candès is the last name of a researcher I've met. I like the name.

Claire is French. It means clear/bright/famous. The Latin Clarus is related (character is an outrageous 80s Nigerian comedy), so are Clare (English), Clair, Clara, Clarette, Klara, Claribel, Sinclair, and the like.

April as in the month. latin aperire = to open, as in flowers.

May as in the best month ever, and the ancient Roman goddess Maia.

Coco, as in cocoa, etc.

Ameera = princess or queen

Samira = companion in evening talk

Lumière = light, I think, as in a lightbulb.

Nero is Italian, said to mean "powerful" or short for the Italian Raniero (wise warrior)

Neo = new in Greek, and the Matrix character

Nehru is Indian and means canal.

Supriya is Indian and means beloved.

Uma is Indian and means bright.

Mala is Indian and means necklace.

Erik Donald France said...

"Promiscuous" has a happy ring to it. I like the idea. Nero is the only scary name in the lot, b/c of the connotations. Fela's music is very cool. Learned a lot here, and maybe even absorbed a little ;)

t said...

that's right...wasn't Nero some emperor who lilled people or something?
...I wonder how many newborn Iraqis are named Saddam.

Happy to read a comment from you - no, two.

Anonymous said...

Comment 1: Tosin hope you got in touch with Nike Oke, she's a really cool person...and passionate about what she does.

Comment 2: Sweetheart, i wonder myself...Why do we HAVE to get married to just one? It's supposed to make it special right? But the rest of my life! Makes you shiver to think...What if you make the wrong choice, cos there ARE so many choices...But only one right one. Or is that true?

I personally liked the names Chloe and Zoe (want twins but no girls...so had to change my mind cos i KNOW my son won't want to be called Chloe...and besides Zoe was a Slave's name)

Anonymous said...

forgot to tell you who this is. Ngozi Ughanze

t said...

I don't know the Zoe slave. Here are some Zoe royals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoe

Chloe and Zoe are way cool.

t said...

Sucky but sometimes cute Karaoke
Top10 KARAOKE RG2007
Uploaded by sportvideos

Info Tek said...

Aaah, so this is your personal blog, eh T?? Not bad at all. :-)

When will I marry? Hmmn. You see, a lot of my friends ARE married and have horrible lives. Some are remarried, divorced, cheeting around. After observing THEM, I don't even know if I'll ever get married. Heck, my kool mom has sworn off men after she had my little bro. Now, Jesus is her only man. No joke. :-O

What would be kool is if I could have 2 or 3 kids and raise them on my own. :-) I don't know...it seems that when peeps get married, everyone CHANGES. But, like, "I married u for who u were BEFORE we tied the knot." I have this fear of peeps getting BORING and just becoming a societal DRONE.

Now, if i can find a skirt who loves PARTICIPATING in athletics, travelling, smart as hell to have stimulating conversations outside the bedroom, is down with Reggae, House, Tribal House, Tech Trance and other similar styles of music, knows how to REALLY cook (like my mom), is into mind expansion (of the Bob Marley kind), well I just might beat a path to her door. LOL!!

---
"Your name came up as a nomination for our Inaugural Future Leaders Program early in July but we had not direct contact info you for. Thanks to the internet, i found your blog."

Any chances of u going back to Nigeria to run the country? I nominate u for president in 2012. :-)

Info Tek said...

As for names, I've always liked:
Clarissa, Ajia (a girl...pronounced Asia), Cortez (but I hate what the Conquistadores did!), Orion

I have a special place in my heart for a son named, Dainar. He was this character in a Star Trek: Next Generation episode. It just sounds so kool to say.
I'm sure I could find some kool African names if i did some research.

t said...

Hi Max, It's crazy - I missed these two comments all this while. Hey, thanks for commenting.
I hear you about marrying (for ever) just seeming like a swindle.
My current thought on marriage is that, maybe later, since when older you may: 1. know more of yourself 2. have had more time to find a s-weet match 3. have less time left in life for it to change dramatically...For today, however, marrying would seem like buying a very expensive insurance policy (against being alone) or something like that. That said, I'm always looking. That said, no hurry in life.

President in four years from today, hmmm, probably not then.

t said...

Re: Ngozi's comments
Thanks, we got in touch and this year I'm going to the NLI seminars, since last year I was stopped from travelling for a dumb transit visa. Look forward to being in touch with you again.

t said...

Coco/Koko, what a nice name. I just met someone else named Koko. He's Kokoette, it means named for his father, and Kokomma is named for her mother. Now that I know what Koko means, I love the name even more.

It's still in my top 5, along with Alexandria, Amadeu, Ayo and Inulewa.

t said...

I still like Koko, used the name for a character in a book, maybe I'll find a way to even put it in the title.
I still love AMADEU.
Runners up are FELA (I found what it means, Fe Ola, as in expand wealth. The meaning isn't as amazing as is possible with Yoruba names, but the famous troublesome musician would be a nice namesake), AYO (in Ayokunnu).
Also maybe RAFA.

As of today, the marriage thing seems ridiculous to me, and the child thing, while quite natural, is also superfluous.
Many ask why not (i.e. since it's been done, it's being done, by "everybody") but if you ask instead why then you may find that it's not what you want.

t said...

as of today,
oh yeah, i have names.
Ama , Amadeu, Fela, ... is one;
and the other is Ari, Ariyike.

I know these kids somewhat well already, it's weird. It's just me in the way now, cos THEY are ready for this whole being born and doing life thing.

i have a latest book that has a bit on the kids. So that someday they'll read it and smile.