“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.”

–From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

I “kind of” disagreed with the above famous quote of Shakespeare. Can you imagine if rose is not named rose? Let say it is named ‘blah’, do you think people will still give this blah flowers for their loved one for Valentine’s Day? If you were the recipient, would you say, “Thanks dear, I love blah so much.” Nah…the scene is too peculiar even to imagine. So Thanks God the name is rose. It really suits it smell, colours and symbol. Not that I love rose, in fact I kind of dislike the smell. Once I cleaned up a bed that got full of roses petal simply to get rid of those damn and thorny flowers but that’s another story. My point is, of course a name mean something. I believe a name is also the best give a parent could give you. It contained their hope and pray and I believe, no parent will give a bad name to their child. But bad it self is a very subjective word.

Like my name for example. Growing in a non-english speaking environment had brought me lots of challenges in introducing my self. Misspelled, mispronounced, mistreated, I experienced them all until I work in a multi national environment. There I can breath more freely for most of the people able to spell, pronounce and appreciate its meaning. Shine. I really like my name. And I think I am living it. (Thanks Mom, thanks Dad, for giving me such a beautiful name. I love it!) And for the same romantic reason, even before I got married, I have decided that I am not going to change my last name. Complicated formalities changes was one of the minor reason but my main reason was I sincerely feel that I have became what I am is because of my parents. My husband, as great and fun loving creature as he is, is still an “end-user”. By keeping my Dad’s name behind mine, I feel that I appreciate the “engineer”. The person who made it happened.

On another story, a dear friend of mine told me a story that an old friend of her back in college was named ‘Marvellous Jelly’ by his parents. When I first heard it, my jaw is dropped and it remained where it was for a full one minute. What did his parent think when they gave him that name? I can think of one thing, at least…and it is not a nice one!

Well, maybe the above example was an extreme one. Another solid example is, I noticed that after the 911 tragedy, the visa process to the Western countries (US in particular) for man with Moslem named is more difficult. It took longer and sometimes even months to get it approved. If you can imagine that ‘Mohammed’ is a common name in Indonesia (as one of the biggest Moslem country – bear in mind, not Islam country) many businessmen can not travel there in time or should try to obtain their visa many months before. Maybe I am wrong, but is it a coincidence that to process visa to US for those with non-moslem’s name (or for married women) was easier?

Still in Indonesia, Indonesian - Chinese descendants are also having challenges in processing their formalities. To obtain passport they also must surrender a letter to prove that they are a citizen of Indonesia. Regardless the fact that they were born here, their parents were born here, their grandparents were born here and so did their great great grand parents and all their assets were here, the Government still ask them to surrender this letter. One of the irony was when a couple Indonesian badminton hero who is assigned to carry an Olympic torch is having difficulties in processing their Indonesian passports.

This kind of difficulties towards Indonesian – Chinese descendants has resulted in them changing their name. For example, those who came from family named ‘Tan’ is changing their family name into ‘Tanuwijaya’. Those who came from family named ‘Soe’ is changing their family name into ‘Soebrata’ or ‘Soemawijaya’. A colleague of mine rejected fierce fully when the Immigration Officer would like to issue passport under his Chinese name. He felt that it will be a threat for him. Although I feel saddened by this fact, I also could understand the reason behind is. Being an Indonesian – Chinese descendants, they are stereotyped as rich and minority people. And when you are rich and minority in a corrupt and developing country, it could lead to only one thing. Being ‘milked’.

Having seen all this, I decided that name is very important. Because your name showed you who you are, where you came from and at some points, your believe. Or at least, your parent’s believe. And all of this can either benefit you or failed you. It really depend on the situation and situation, is sometimes affected by decision made by some stupid and ignorant people.

I personally don’t ‘judge’ people based on their name, or their colour of skin, or their nationality. That’s why I said in the beginning that I “kind of” disagreed. Not completely disagreed. I just thought that when Shakespeare said the above quote, the world must be so much simplerer then. Well, maybe not. Otherwise Romeo & Juliet would not have to die just because one is Capulet and the other was Montague. And that’s why a name should have not be the base of how we judge people. Unfortunately, the world does not run that way.