The Name Game

People who come to Malaysia for the first time may find it strange (in a charming sort of way) to find Malaysians addressing them with their first names, appended by a “Mister” or “Miss”, such as Mr. John (if his name is John Smith) or Ms. May (if her name is May Lee).

The reason for this is because of the way people are named in Malaysia. Most people in Malaysia do not follow the regular [First Name/Given Name] + [Surname/Family Name] formula. Rather, the pattern is [Your Name] + [Your Father's Name].

This is always the case for Malays. A man whose name is Ahmad bin Abdullah will always be addressed as Encik Ahmad (Mr. Ahmad) and not Encik Abdullah because Encik Abdullah is his father. The ‘bin’ means ‘son of’, following the Arabic form, as in the infamous Osama bin Laden (Osama ‘son of’ Laden). So by the time Ahmad bin Abdullah has children, his children will carry his name ‘Ahmad’ instead of their grandfather’s ‘Abdullah’. If Encik Ahmad gets a son, whom he names Omar, his son will be called Omar bin Ahmad or Omar Ahmad, for short. If he gets a daughter, whom he names Yasmin, she will be called Yasmin binti Ahmad (‘binti,’ sometimes shortened to ‘bt’, meaning ‘daughter of’) or Yasmin Ahmad, for short. And when Yasmin gets married, her name still remains ‘Yasmin Ahmad’.

The Indians and Orang Asli (indigenous people) follow the same formula, except that you’ll see ‘A/L’ and ‘A/P’ instead of ‘bin’ and ‘binti’. ‘A/L’ stands for ‘anak lelaki‘ (male child) while ‘A/P’ stands for ‘anak perempuan‘ (female child). For example, Rajan A/L Viswanathan will be known as Mr. Rajan. Say, he gets twins, a boy and a girl, whom he names George and Susan. They will be known, respectively, as George A/L Rajan and Susan A/P Rajan, or George Rajan and Susan Rajan, for short. And by the time George grows up and has children of his own, they will be known as Michael George or Rajesh George. I have a cousin who married a Malaysian Indian, who has a son named Rikkonen, after the famous F1 driver, Kimi Rikkonen. Just imagine, by the time he grows up and has a son of his own, he can have his very own Kimi Rikkonen!

The Chinese are perhaps the only ones who follow the family name system, but they follow the traditional Chinese formula of [Family Name] + [First Name] + [First Name], e.g. Lee Yun Fat. Lee is the family name, with Yun Fat being the first names. His children will all take the Lee family name (e.g. Lee Teck Sun) but his wife, if her name is Low Su Yin, will remain Miss Low even after marriage.

In the recent years, there has been a trend among Chinese to adopt Western names. So even if the sale rep’s business card reads Mary Cheng, her real name, as per her IC (identity card), may only have Cheng Mei Hwa. Nowadays, some Chinese couples choose the Western names for their child and register their son as, say, Brandon Yap Ka Wah. His business card may simply read ‘Brandon Yap’ or ‘Brandon K.W. Yap’ or, sometimes, ‘Brandon Yap Ka Wah’. In any case, you’d have to address him as ‘Mr. Yap.’

Then, of course, there are the different titles apart from ‘Cik’ (Miss), ‘Encik’ (Mister), and ‘Puan’ (Mrs). There’s Dato’, Dato’ Seri, Tan Sri, Tun, e.g. former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad (whom you have to address as ‘Tun Mahathir’) or current Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Badawi (whom you have to refer to as ‘Dato’ Seri Abdullah’). These are titles that go with awards that are conferred by any of the Malaysian sultans, usually on their respective birthdays. Wives of men who receive Datoships automatically become ‘Datin’ (How does Datin Mimi sound? Wishful thinking! Haha!). The wife of a Dato’ Seri becomes a ‘Datin Seri’.

Titles are taken very seriously in Malaysia. When filling up bank forms, for instance, the banks will always want to know your preferred title (Encik/Cik/Puan/Dato’, etc.) so that they can avoid any future faux pas when it comes to addressing their customers.

But don’t be too excited when you hear a man being referred to as ‘Datuk‘. ‘Datuk‘, which is pronounced the same way as ‘Dato‘, with the latter sometimes spelled like the former, means ‘grandfather’ in Malay!

Note: Dato’ and Datuk are both pronounced the same way. The apostrophe at the end of the word Dato’ shows that we have to emphasize on the ‘o’; it’s the same effect as the ‘k’ at the end of a word — it’s for stress and is not meant to be pronounced. The ‘k’ at the end is pronounced like the ‘o’  in the Tagalog word ‘bunso’. If ‘bunso’ were a Malay word, it would be spelled as ‘bunsuk’, in order to show the correct pronunciation of the word.