december 22, 2000
something a little lighter tonight...
the subject of names came up tonight in conversation with a friend. like i said in an earlier journal entry, i want to use this forum to give you, my three or four cyberfans, a chance to get to know me better. and tonight i wanted to write about....names!
nicknames: when i was in college, i was immediately christened "$P-Money$" (dollar signs added for effect) by a fellow dormmate. i don't know why it stuck, but it did. that's why you might see me refer to myself by that name on this website. be assured, it's not cuz i have some unusual fixation on cash or anything like that. it's what my roommates in college called me, and i kinda like it.
i had another nickname in college. this one was given to me by a girl in the church youth group i used to serve as a teacher. one weekend afternoon, i went to the basketball court at the park adjacent to out church with some of the seventh graders. one of the girls, feeling especially dictatorial that day, mandated that i was no longer allowed to use my hands or arms for any aspect of the game! pretty ridiculous, but i went along with it anyways. so instead of shooting, passing, playing defense, etc. i decided to do the only thing i could do - i started making gorilla noises. long story short, everyone had a good laugh and the aforementioned dictator told me that i was acting like a big old gorilla - like DONKEY KONG! boom! a new nickname. that was over four years ago, but the name persists. EVERYONE at church - from the youth group students, to the people in college and young adult groups, and even the korean adults and pastors - call me donkey kong, or just "DK" for short. it's gotten to the point where i believe there's a better chance that people at church will remember me as "DK" but not by my given name! but really, i consider it a privilege that i've had this nickname (as well as the other) and that it's stuck. maybe i'm reading too much into it, but in a way i think it shows that i've established a small, but real bond with these people that they feel comfortable enough to call me by either name. and i definitely appreciate it.
last topic of the night - my kids' names: a bunch of women at work are pregnant right now, and i occasionally catch conversations about "what to name the baby." i don't have a kid on the way (shoot, i don't even have a girl), but i thought it was interesting to come up with a few possibilities.
dude names - jerome; dante; abdullah; muhammad; tyrone; winston, ray, peter, and egon (the ghostbusters) and slimer, if i have another; darth; maybe give them all ambiguous names like, chris, kelly, sam, or pat; or i could just go with the standard korean names (i.e. paul kim, john kim, david kim, michael kim, etc.)
girl names - i think the "in" thing to do these days is to give daughters more nontraditional names, such as ashley or chloe or after any street in the san fernando valley (topanga, reseda, winnetka, ventura...plummer? ha ha). not me. i'm gonna bring back all the korean christian names (as alluded to above). my daughters will be grace kim, esther kim, jennifer kim, susan kim, and christina kim.
ha ha...but first things first!