Thais love nicknames! And among nicknames, they have a certain fondness for ones in English. Why? Why nicknames and why in English? My comments here are not based on extensive research. Most of what I know, or think I know, comes from my own observations and speculations. Here's what I find fascinating about Thais and their nicknames:
- Their nicknames are not so much names as they are things. Just a few of Thais I know personally:
- Lemon a young man
- Apple, the woman next door
- Mango, the guy who waits on me at the supermarket
- Earn, the woman next door's little daughter
- Small, the owner of a cafe
- And here are some of the nicknames I have come across in my travels:
- Coke
- Pepsi
- Game
- Dollar
- Nut
- Chevolet
- Honey
After tiring of saying I don't have a nickname, dealing with the expression of complete befuddlement, trying to explain that only a few Americans have nicknames into their adulthood, I have chosen a nickname for myself: Papaya. Yeah, the tropical fruit papaya. Why? Well, Thais commonly have names of fruits for nicknames and also many already call me Papa, the Thai word for grandfather. Thais will always try to figure out who you would be to them if you were a member of their family. Actually, for a Thai to give a foreigner a title reserved for family members is a great honor. It doesn't take long before I become Papa. The name brings to mind Papa Hemingway and Papa Doc.
Now why do Thais have nicknames in the first place? Two reasons: First, the name they are given at birth is a traditional one often from the Sanskrit, difficult to say and difficult to write; Second, there's an old and sometimes present belief in the presence of evil spirits, ghosts, walking the earth looking for you by name. If you don't use your birth name, the ghosts never find you. There's another reason based on speculation: It's fun to have nicknames! For the Thai people, if something isn't fun, it's just not worth doing.
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