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What Is In A Name?

My first name is a bit unusual. There was a time when I didn't use it. I created the name Brenton, Brent for short and used it throughout college and my service in the military. While I was living in Asia I got very tired of hearing Asians tripping over my name. When pronounced with an Asian accent Brent usually came out as Blen-ta. Oddly Asians can handle Elgon (pronounced L-gun) very well. That was when and why I started using my first name again.

It has grown on me. I am used to it now. I think I could even go by it alone. Maybe when I am famous, I will be The Elgon or just Elgon.

If you google "Elgon" you will notice that there is an extinct volcano in Kenya named Mount Elgon. If you have patience and a lot of time to waste going down the search hits, you will eventually find something about the books I have written. You can reduce that search by adding my last name to the string. The books will then appear on the first page of results.

I would say that it is just a coincidence that I share a name with a volcano but I don't believe in coincidences. Over the years it has been a point of conversation and sometimes humor. In a job interview, I was asked (as if it mattered), What nationality is your name?

Uh, Kenyan.

Oh, were your parents missionaries?

No, they were from Kentucky and other than one time when I went on a plant trip with my father to Toronto and another time when I took my mother and father for a drive in northern Mexico, my parents were never outside of the United States.

How did you get that name then?

Well, actually my paternal grandmother gave it to my father. She said there was a peddler that came by their house when she was young and his name was Elgon. She thought it would be a nice name for her son if she ever had a boy. My personal feeling is that his name might have been Elgin but my grandmother couldn't spell very well.

Your father was named Elgon?

Yes, although he never liked it much and went by what he believed was his middle name, Bruce.

I see. Well if he didn't like the name why did he give it to you?

Well, that is a mystery. He told me if I ever had a son that I would understand. He wanted a namesake.

So you are a Jr.

No, actually my mother refused to allow the hospital to tag Jr. onto my name. She said she grew up with a boy named Junior Williams and he was the meanest kid around. He used to do really disgusting things.

Such as?

Well, it wouldn't be polite to explain further than to say he liked to torment babies and small animals.

So you are named after your father but your mother wouldn't let you be named Jr.

Yes, exactly. She even ensured that I wasn't named after my father completely by giving me only a middle initial, not calling me Bruce. The irony is that when my father retired, he had to get his birth records from The State of Kentucky. The courthouse had burned down at some point in the past so the only record of his birth was in an archive in the Frankfort. Come to find out, his birth name was Elgon B. Williams. He was never officially named Bruce. Like me, he just had the middle initial.

So you are named after him after all.

Yes.

My name rendered into Chinese Mandarin is Wei You Guang, Wei being a family name that is also for anyone with a western name that begins with a 'W' and my given name is literally 'You' meaning To Have and 'Guang' meaning Light. So I was Wei the enlightened one. Of course, I kind of liked that.

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posted by Unknown @ 10:10 AM