How to Choose a Thai Name
June 8th, 2005Via the ever-awesome Global Voices, I ended up on a great blog about Thailand, Thai-Blogs.com. This post has some linguistic interest: How to Choose a Thai name.
A few years back I taught ESL, and I had several Thai students. Thai names are quite complex; the post above goes into the details on the “official” Thai names, which are derived from Pali and generally given to people by Buddhist monks.
But that’s not the end of it. Most people also have a short, one- or two-syllable nickname as well. And if they’re of Chinese heritage they often also have a Chinese given name, and finally a family name.
I think I will start collecting names for myself in different languages, heh.
Act quick! You can name me in Thai! Now’s your chance!