When I was in primary school most of my friends called me Nas. I really don’t have any idea who started calling me that since personally I never introduced myself as Nas. Maybe because it was the first word they heard and it was easy to remember. Linda is easy too but maybe when the two combines people get confused. Most of the time people will think me name is Haslinda. Very seldom I find people who get my name right the first time they heard it. Usually I only introduce the second part of my name instead of the complete one because the first part is more like the family surname so normally I ditched it. Only when I am needed to introduce myself formally then I use every word in my name. I do admit having quite a long name but if you compared it to today's parents guide of naming children, mine would be among the shortest. What with parents these days? Please don’t torture your children with a lengthy name please…they would find it very difficult filling in form in the future and it wouldn't be just form, JPN will have trouble putting it on the identity card, bank on the credit card, even school books don't have enough space for the name.
I knew a person with a very long name back in school yet people only called her Syam, well some would called her Nas, but then again that is what they call me so she settled for Syam instead,( and too add to the confusion there is there is this new guy named Anas..everytime we are in the same class some idiot would just came in and shouted Nas and the tree of us would turn, gosh..I hated that)
The confusion existed even at home because my brother friends also called him Nas instead of Rizal (mom choose it after the Philippine’s patriot Jose Rizal, mine was after a doctor who treated me back in LA, dad was the one who pick it up..go figure … the doctor must be hot..hehehe).
Often when our friends called they are needed to give the full name of the person they want to talk too because there are two ‘Nas’ in the house. ‘Can I talk to Nas please’ will never work. ‘Which Nas?’ would be the reply.
But as I entered matriculation people opted for Leen instead. Actually it was more an act to avoid confusion because just next door to y room there was another student by the name of Maslinda, and everyone called her Mas. Mas and Nas almost sounded the same, so came the new name (actually its not new since my mom called me that at home), to avoid any fiasco since we live in the same wing, attend the same class, same tutorial and the same practical group, it was a necessary precaution to find a way to avoid the whole ‘is it me or her’ confusion. So I decided to let people called me by my name third syllabus.
Often I can tell from where did I met the person based on the name that they call me (since I’m quite hopeless at remembering people faces or name) Nas had to be from my schooling years while Leen would be people whom I met during my upper learning years.
As for Syam..because of her lengthy name we used to joke that her future husband will need extra preparation just to pronounce the ‘akad’ in front of ‘ tok kadi’. Because by time he finish saying her name he would be out of breath…and that doesn’t even include the whole ‘aku terima …and mas kahwin’ yet. Pity.
So dear parents and future parents please don’t opt for a very long name. Two names is alright..but to add three, four and even five syllabus is just pure crazy. You see, long name only add room for confusion and that doesn’t include the fancy hard to spell name yet. Give your children room to breath; give the teacher and every other person especially the JPN people a break.
Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior. ~Logan Pearsall Smith
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