Wenceslao: Names

Wenceslao: Names

Today is the first day of February. The month is mythical, I should say. I grew up hearing things said about those born in this month.

Cebuanos, for example, have a word for the February mind: “kuwang-kuwang.” This is because February only has 28 days, except for when we have a “leap year” when it has 29. The other months have either 30 or 31 days. So people born in February are “kuwang-kuwang,” which means idiots. A variation to that word is “buwanon” or lunatic. Or they are simply eccentrics. This is my favorite quote that reverses this description: “People born in February are normal, it is the others who are different.”

A big number of those born in February fall under the zodiac sign of Aquarius, which is a double whammy, considering how Aquarians are generally being perceived by others. And while I am no believer of the zodiac or superstition, I must concede that there are some truths to the perception. I can tell when one is an Aquarian or was born in February by their exhibition of a certain degree of eccentricity.

I was born on the day of the candles, referred to by Catholics as “Candelaria.” On this day, our elders would buy multi-colored candles blessed with holy water, a practice that my wife and I inherited and which I hope my sons would inherit also. This means that I always have a cheaper way to celebrate my birthday—buy candles, light candles in the church and attend mass. We aren’t rich, so our birthdays pass without fanfare.

I don’t really know if my aunt who is in the US was born on Feb. 2, but her name is Candida, later Americanized as Candy. So when my parents baptized me as “Candido,” either they were merely honoring my aunt or modernized the name Candelario, which would have been more apt for me given the day I was born.

Which brings me to this practice of naming people. I think there should be a law that would allow children to have a say on whether they would continue using the name their parents gave them at birth or replace the name with something palatable to them. Remember that trending video of a child crying because he found it difficult to write his name which was in reality two Americanized first names plus the surname?

And this practice of naming is dependent on what is in vogue during the time a child is born. The Spanish influence was obvious in the names given to us by our elders in the past. These days, Western influence is guiding the naming of our children. By the way, there was also the “napta” given by Catholic priests so Filipinos would name their children after saints whose feast day was celebrated on the day the child was born.

When I was in Bohol, I had this feeling that Francisco Dagohoy’s long-time control of the interior areas of the province, even during the Spanish period, influenced the naming and acquisition of surnames by children. When I hear family names like “Duhaylungsod” for example, I always thought the ancestors of the family names’ bearers were from Bohol.

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