Thursday, June 25, 2009
Progeny, Thy Name is...
So I've got this baby to take care of now. What am I going to call it?
Quick note: you might have missed it, but I posted the full story of my son's birth right here. I wanted the post to be dated on his birthday (which is when I started writing it, honestly) but then when I made this quickie post to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Batman, the other post kind of slipped down on the page a bit and my usual auto-notification system ignored it. So if you didn't already, please go back and read about our day-long delivery experience. Or you can tell me what you think of Batman, that's cool too.
What was I talking about? Oh right, the baby. My inbox and Facebook have been overflowing with messages about the baby. First, let me thank everyone who wrote in to congratulate us. I really appreciate all the love and I know Mako does to. She's still in the hospital right now but whenever I see her, she asks about what information I have shared with my family and friends. Unfortunately, she's a bit sensitive about her appearance right now, so she doesn't want me to share any photos with her in them. In fact, she doesn't even want to see them on my phone! The first picture I chose to add to my mobile phone's background was a shot of her holding the baby because I felt it was a beautiful picture of two people I love. When she spotted it, she immediately told me to change it lest someone else see her face au natural.
I am hoping to get a nice shot of our new family soon, but I presume it will have to wait until she is discharged so she can put on her makeup. No kidding: both Mako and her mother were really worried on Sunday because they left the house without going through their usual beauty routines. Ladies, if you're reading this, believe me when I tell you that any human being who is seriously concerned you are not wearing makeup is a douchebag - especially if you are on your way to the hospital to have a baby!
For those of you clamoring for more baby details, here they are. My son was born on June 22nd at 2:33 AM. At the time, he was 1' 8" and weighed 7 lbs 7 oz. These seem to be above-average numbers in Japan; he is noticeably larger than the other babies I see in the maternity ward. So far, his appearance is more Asian than Caucasian. His hair color, eye color, eye shape and skin tone all resemble his mother's more than my own. However, we all agree that facially, he looks like me in some way, particularly the eyes and nose. Watching these features develop over time will be very exciting.
One weird thing I must talk about are his hands. When I first saw him after the nurses toweled him off, his hands were pale, wrinkled and the fingernails were a dark crimson. In other words, he had what I would call "wizard hands." Subsequent washing and nail trimming has made them more human than magic-user, but they still seem quite wrinkled. Mako thinks they look like my hands even though he has her nails. No one has laid claim to his feet yet.
Of course, the big question everyone wants to know is "what is the baby's name?" While I was coy about this for a long time, the fact is we picked two names (one male, one female) months ago. Once we learned the gender we threw out the girl's name and have been using his name ever since. Some late-term kicking made me jokingly refer to him as "Bruce Lee Feit" for a stretch, something Mako immediately mock-embraced and then latched onto for a while, but otherwise all that time I pretended we were still deciding, we weren't. I just wanted to say the baby's name to his face before telling other people.
Now that he's heard it, I can tell you all my son's name is...
GO
In Japanese, that's written with the following character:
...which means "great," "powerful" or as I like to think of it, "awesome." It also represents Australia in certain contexts, which is pretty random. I guess we'll have to take a trip there someday.
(If you just want to learn more about this character, including seeing a list of words that use it, you can visit this page for more information)
It took us a long time to settle on GO. Mako, much to my surprise, was more interested in Western sounding names than I was. As I previously mentioned, she was quite fond of "DJ" (as in "Daniel Junior") and it took some stern refusals on my part to force her to drop it. Meanwhile, I wanted a Japanese name from the start but Mako shot down all of my ideas as being too old-fashioned or because she felt they were inspired by anime or movies. I still maintain Kenshiro Feit would be an incredible name for a child but she disagreed. Vehemently.
In the end, GO satisfied us both and it had the added benefit of being instantly recognizable to both English and Japanese speakers. Japanese doesn't use a lot of vowel sounds but the way certain names are romanized, it can be confusing if you are unfamiliar with the language. Cool names like Ryu and Iori would only confuse my American family and friends, and certain English-derived Japanese names would be romanized in odd ways (i.e. Rei/Ray or Tomu/Tom) GO is simple, straightforward and if I may say so, dynamic.
(Strictly speaking, GO is a long "o" which can be romanized as Gou, Goh or Gô. But much like Tokyo is never written as Toukyou, GO is just going to be GO in my book)
For those curious parties, there will be no middle name or any other artificial names recorded for my son. Middle names are sources of endless confusion in Japan because the custom is not well understood. I can't tell you how many times I've been questioned or forced to rewrite application forms because I neglected to include my middle name or I did so and the clerk misinterpreted it. No, his name is GO. That's that.
For those curious, GO is a Cancer in the West and a Ox/Bull in the East, the latter being particularly popular in Japan. Don't feel pressure to pay attention to either though. I view the whole thing as a curiosity myself, but I have the luxury of being a Scorpion AND a Dragon which is just plain cool. GO shares a birthday with some notable movie-types, such as Meryl Streep, Hong Kong actor/director Stephen Chow and...Bruce Campbell???
Is it too late to name him Bruce?
Quick note: you might have missed it, but I posted the full story of my son's birth right here. I wanted the post to be dated on his birthday (which is when I started writing it, honestly) but then when I made this quickie post to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Batman, the other post kind of slipped down on the page a bit and my usual auto-notification system ignored it. So if you didn't already, please go back and read about our day-long delivery experience. Or you can tell me what you think of Batman, that's cool too.
What was I talking about? Oh right, the baby. My inbox and Facebook have been overflowing with messages about the baby. First, let me thank everyone who wrote in to congratulate us. I really appreciate all the love and I know Mako does to. She's still in the hospital right now but whenever I see her, she asks about what information I have shared with my family and friends. Unfortunately, she's a bit sensitive about her appearance right now, so she doesn't want me to share any photos with her in them. In fact, she doesn't even want to see them on my phone! The first picture I chose to add to my mobile phone's background was a shot of her holding the baby because I felt it was a beautiful picture of two people I love. When she spotted it, she immediately told me to change it lest someone else see her face au natural.
I am hoping to get a nice shot of our new family soon, but I presume it will have to wait until she is discharged so she can put on her makeup. No kidding: both Mako and her mother were really worried on Sunday because they left the house without going through their usual beauty routines. Ladies, if you're reading this, believe me when I tell you that any human being who is seriously concerned you are not wearing makeup is a douchebag - especially if you are on your way to the hospital to have a baby!
For those of you clamoring for more baby details, here they are. My son was born on June 22nd at 2:33 AM. At the time, he was 1' 8" and weighed 7 lbs 7 oz. These seem to be above-average numbers in Japan; he is noticeably larger than the other babies I see in the maternity ward. So far, his appearance is more Asian than Caucasian. His hair color, eye color, eye shape and skin tone all resemble his mother's more than my own. However, we all agree that facially, he looks like me in some way, particularly the eyes and nose. Watching these features develop over time will be very exciting.
One weird thing I must talk about are his hands. When I first saw him after the nurses toweled him off, his hands were pale, wrinkled and the fingernails were a dark crimson. In other words, he had what I would call "wizard hands." Subsequent washing and nail trimming has made them more human than magic-user, but they still seem quite wrinkled. Mako thinks they look like my hands even though he has her nails. No one has laid claim to his feet yet.
Of course, the big question everyone wants to know is "what is the baby's name?" While I was coy about this for a long time, the fact is we picked two names (one male, one female) months ago. Once we learned the gender we threw out the girl's name and have been using his name ever since. Some late-term kicking made me jokingly refer to him as "Bruce Lee Feit" for a stretch, something Mako immediately mock-embraced and then latched onto for a while, but otherwise all that time I pretended we were still deciding, we weren't. I just wanted to say the baby's name to his face before telling other people.
Now that he's heard it, I can tell you all my son's name is...
GO
In Japanese, that's written with the following character:
...which means "great," "powerful" or as I like to think of it, "awesome." It also represents Australia in certain contexts, which is pretty random. I guess we'll have to take a trip there someday.
(If you just want to learn more about this character, including seeing a list of words that use it, you can visit this page for more information)
It took us a long time to settle on GO. Mako, much to my surprise, was more interested in Western sounding names than I was. As I previously mentioned, she was quite fond of "DJ" (as in "Daniel Junior") and it took some stern refusals on my part to force her to drop it. Meanwhile, I wanted a Japanese name from the start but Mako shot down all of my ideas as being too old-fashioned or because she felt they were inspired by anime or movies. I still maintain Kenshiro Feit would be an incredible name for a child but she disagreed. Vehemently.
In the end, GO satisfied us both and it had the added benefit of being instantly recognizable to both English and Japanese speakers. Japanese doesn't use a lot of vowel sounds but the way certain names are romanized, it can be confusing if you are unfamiliar with the language. Cool names like Ryu and Iori would only confuse my American family and friends, and certain English-derived Japanese names would be romanized in odd ways (i.e. Rei/Ray or Tomu/Tom) GO is simple, straightforward and if I may say so, dynamic.
(Strictly speaking, GO is a long "o" which can be romanized as Gou, Goh or Gô. But much like Tokyo is never written as Toukyou, GO is just going to be GO in my book)
For those curious parties, there will be no middle name or any other artificial names recorded for my son. Middle names are sources of endless confusion in Japan because the custom is not well understood. I can't tell you how many times I've been questioned or forced to rewrite application forms because I neglected to include my middle name or I did so and the clerk misinterpreted it. No, his name is GO. That's that.
For those curious, GO is a Cancer in the West and a Ox/Bull in the East, the latter being particularly popular in Japan. Don't feel pressure to pay attention to either though. I view the whole thing as a curiosity myself, but I have the luxury of being a Scorpion AND a Dragon which is just plain cool. GO shares a birthday with some notable movie-types, such as Meryl Streep, Hong Kong actor/director Stephen Chow and...Bruce Campbell???
Is it too late to name him Bruce?
Labels: family, number one son
Feedback:
When leaving comments, please don't remain Anonymous. Click on "Other" and pick a name!
Be sociable! No sign-up is required!
Though I, as you, don't really some heavenly bodies arbitrary position on in the sky as percieved from earth or what hour month or your you are born means anything - sharing your birthyear ('76 reprezent) I can expand upon your dragon by telling you that apart from the 12 year zodizc cycle, there is also a cycle of the five elements and '76 happens to be the year of the fire dragon, only adding to the coolness factor =)
Linguisitc fun: In danish the word slange = snake, but is also a homonym for hose/tube, so in danish being born in the year of the water snake (vand slange) makes you a garden hose.
Linguisitc fun: In danish the word slange = snake, but is also a homonym for hose/tube, so in danish being born in the year of the water snake (vand slange) makes you a garden hose.
Back in my D&D days, I thought the idea of a Lightning Dragon was cooler than Fire...but that's not on the list.
As an Asian Studies student, I knew about the elemental cycles of the symbols, yes. According to one of these systems, Mako and I are supposed to be a great match, while another system says we're totally wrong for each other. Either way, we've reproduced. Hooray.
As an Asian Studies student, I knew about the elemental cycles of the symbols, yes. According to one of these systems, Mako and I are supposed to be a great match, while another system says we're totally wrong for each other. Either way, we've reproduced. Hooray.
yeah, but you KNOW a red dragon is gonna beat a blue dragon any day 'coz it has more hp
(omg we share a fellow nerdy past as well)
(omg we share a fellow nerdy past as well)
Dude check out his facial bone structure. It's supposed to look like the dad the first year so you're tempted to stick around and take care of it...
Great name too!
コメントがあるちゃう？ Type something, please. It's less work for me.Great name too!
When leaving comments, please don't remain Anonymous. Click on "Other" and pick a name!
Be sociable! No sign-up is required!
