Twisty Tales : 50 Names!

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50 Names!

THIS REALLY HAPPENED TO ME!

I come from a large Chinese family. I have fifty first-cousins - and that's just on my dad's side. Friends used to ask me, how did I end up with so many?

My explanation is simple.
We come from a staunch Roman Catholic family.
No birth control. No pills. No caps.
And worst of all - No withdrawal. Leave it in the hands of God.
What can I say, my family are prolific producers.

But this story is not about me, it's about my late grandfather.
The lucky man, he has 50 grandchildren, and all through a monogamous marriage.
But the poor man - he names his grandchildren himself. And he had to come up with 50 names, all following names of Catholic saints. On top of that he had also to come out with the Chinese names too. That's a task! One can appreciate my grandfather's dilemma.


First off - The English Names.
Being Catholics, there are at least 5 of us named Joseph and a a couple of Marys.
One cousin is Cornelius, his friends used to call him Corny until he cleverly played on a twist of his name and calls himself Nico.
Another was named Hyacinth. Is there such a saint's name. Apparently there is - I did check it up. He thought it was a mouthful (and perhaps somewhat flowery & feminine) and decided to use his Chinese name when introducing himself.
My younger brother is called Anslem, but he is happy with it as many people mispronounce it as Handsome.

Next - The Chinese Names.
(Chinese names comes in three parts. The first part is the surname, for eg. Wong, Chin, etc. The next one is the generation name, meaning all in the same generation will have the same one. It's a different one for males and females. Ours for guys is "Seang" and for girls "Siew". The last part is the distinct individual name. It's a good system, one look at the name and we can tell which family a person is from; and also which generation.)

So we have Chinese names like :
Seang Seang - meaning Exactly The Same
Seang Kuan - the Same Type
Seang Ee - Same As Him

Me? I have the same Christian name as my eldest brother. People ask me why. I can only tell them -

 "My grandfather ran out of names!"

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