There Is No Cat - Dare To Be Heinie!

Monday, May 20, 2002

Dare To Be Heinie!

One night last week, Laura and I were laying in bed, both reading recent issues of The East Village Inky, a zine that she picks up whenever we go to See Hear in the city (we’re such hipsters!). It’s a really charming handwritten (and drawn) zine about a family living in Brooklyn (originally living in the East Village, hence the title). The author of the EVI, Ayun Halliday, has her own web site now, to promote her new book, The Big Rumpus. We don’t have a copy of it yet, but if it’s anything like the EVI, it’ll be well worth the money. Ayun and her husband Greg have a daughter, India (a.k.a. Inky), and a son, Milo Hanuman. I almost died when I read in the zine that his middle name was Hanuman. If you’ve ever heard the Kecak, the Indonesian monkey chant done for the tourists and based on the Hindu epic, The Ramayana, you’ll know what I mean. Poor kid. Having the name "Monkey King" might be appropriate when you’re two years old, but at 18 it’s going to feel awfully embarassing.

Posted at 10:02 PM

Comments

Dude, I have to disagree. A couple friends of mine who just had a kid Thursday named him Hanuman. First name, not middle. It’s a way cool name.

Posted by tara at 1:27 AM, May 22, 2002 [Link]

You may think it’s cool, his parents may think it’s cool, but if anyone in seventh grade ever finds out 12 years from now, they’re not going to think it’s cool at all, except that it’s cool to rag on the poor kid all the time. I think giving a kid a name like this is a horribly selfish and insensitive thing to do, especially as a first name. Kind of like how I think parents who give their children joke names like "Rose Bush" should be thrown in jail for the rest of their lives and have a guard walk by every fifteen minutes and tell them the same unfunny joke over and over and over forever.

Posted by ralph at 11:58 AM, May 22, 2002 [Link]

Guess I should have mentioned that the kid of my friends is biracial with the father’s ethnic heritage being Indian. I think that with the vastness of ethnic diversity that has been happening, especially in a city like Boston, no one’s going to notice a kid named Hanuman.

I think it’s pretty honorable and neat to be named after an incarnation of Shiva with a name that imbues valor, agility, devotion, and strength. The name can easily be shortened to Hannie or Mannie or something like that if it absolutely must be Anglocized. If the kid is that sensitive, he’s got the fall back of saying he’s named after the incarnation of a Hindu god. Monkey King never has to be mentioned, and kids rarely bother to go look that sort of thing up.

Posted by tara at 11:03 PM, May 22, 2002 [Link]

Okay, if the kid is half-Indian, I suppose that makes a difference. Still, the potential for abuse makes me shudder.

Posted by ralph at 11:27 PM, May 22, 2002 [Link]