Baby Names

You know how bad I am with Names...
I struggle to remember respondents' names in my focus groups these days, sometimes I will call another person and look at him/ her expectantly, while he/ she will look quite blank and another fella at the other side of the sofa will hesitantly answer.. "er.. I am XX.." and it was hilarious!

These days I have a new problem..
I have problems remembering all the names of my friends' babies!!!
aiyo!

And of course it does not help that many kids these days have new age names.. ok.. to me there are 2 types of new age names.
Type 1: Those that sound v english, but spelt differently. E.g. Linda, but spelt Lynnda etc
Type 2: Ingenous names that are English sounding but can't be found in the English name book. Many of those around..

I was telling a friend that next time when En goes to school, I will have a hard time writing party invites, cuz I have to make sure I get the spelling right!

Names are important, and of course it is all personal preference.
For me, who have been mis-labelled and mis-pronounced all my life, through all the following scenarios, you know why I want proper, strng sounding names for my kids..

1. The teacher look at the class list and when it is my turn, gave a blank stare
2. Others visibly struggle to pronounce "meow-ling"/ "mia-ling" "mui-ling", while there I was, hoping she quickly get it right as classmates are all turning around to look at me.. I hate to be the centre of attention.. and if you think that is worst, well i have to then stand up and correct the teacher that it is Miew Leng and still having the teacher getting it wrong..
3. Even when they change to Hanyu PingYin, Miaoling was a struggle as many associate me with a cat.. the expat teachers had it the worst, as I grew older I got confident enough to feel sorry for putting them on a spot.
4. When I was young and out dating, whenever we meet new groups of friends and interesting guys, I hate it when guys gross me over because the name is too hard to get it right and it makes them look silly if they call it wrong.. imagine how crass was it to have to scream my name over the club music just so they get it..
5. And now when I am working, clients and people whom I meet for the first time, still struggle with my name. They always look at my name card, hoping that that spelling will help form an idea.. again it does not help the foreigners/ non Chinese.. even in emails, my name gets permutated endless times. The most hilarious has to be when a long time client who worked with me for over 3 years and she still insist on writing to me as "Mui leng" and calls me "mui leng".. even though I blatantly sign off my name in bold! In the end, my boss has to tell her casually once that my name is Miew Leng.. but I did not get to work much with her thereafter.. haa!


So you can imagine having gone through the above all my life, I don't want to put my kids through it with funny names. Inevitably, the Chinese names will be tough, but with the english names, I opted for being normal, rather than being outstanding.

So now that many friends have kids, I really struggle to remember all the names correctly. in case they feel i can't be bothered to remember their names..

I am thinking I need a little pink book for baby names.. haha! And i think the teachers of our times will have a tougher time too.. heehee..
How do you pronounce a name like "melvryan" ?