I can betcha most of my friends don't even know I have a middle name. Not even my best friend... now come to think about it HAHA. Okay - so I think nobody knows actually? Of course my family. But, I'd just have you know that my parents weren't the one who named me Aurora.
Anyway, I hardly ever mentioned it in Singapore, yknow since middle names used to be uncommon back in the days. Okay lemme explain something. Many Singaporeans nowadays own an English name, surname, and then their Chinese name, but for our fellow Caucasian friends, they all adopt first, middle and surnames only. So in a sense, we ALL have 2 names, but of course, in this day and age, we see more SGreans with middle names. Eh not bad right, now we have THREE names hahaha!
My sister has a middle name too, and it also wasn't a name from my parents. Hahaha. Now you be thinking - who on earth named us then? It's a long story. In fact, I don't think anyone (not even my family) knows the truth about how my middle name really came about. Time to let the secret out!
Press rewind.
Way back in Aussie, when all I ever thought about was how to have more fun (and sometimes being a mischeivious kiddo with an innocent facade), I used to hang out with a few of my dad's colleague's children, at Christian Home Fellowship every friday or whenever. We hung out a lot, since they were all Singaporeans and stuff. Of course, I had my own circle of Aussie pals, whom I absolutely love, cherish & adore, but they were fascinated with my Chinese name and always asking me what it meant, and what their name would be in Chinese... to which I do remember playing a fool and giving them names like "Mei Li" = Beautiful & "Hua Mei" = Flower pretty. HAHAHA. Ridiculously genius.
So, in return, I also was fascinated with all their middle names, some even with a story behind it, or named after their relative. That got me thinking. Lil' me wanted a middle name too. I remember one day, I was talking about it with my friend, Grace Tang, not sure if Odelia was there, but we were giving each other ideas on what middle names we should adopt. I totally can't remember what Grace chose, neither who mentioned the name "Aurora" first, but I know that I did love the idea of "Aurora", because I liked being named after my fave princess, and it made me sound royal & demure haha :D
After that, I think my brain accepted the middle name for real... I know it lingered in my thoughts everyday, and thus decided to make it secretly official. I told my sister about my middle name, and like allllll younger sisters, they end up sulking if they don't get one too. (Pay attention to the fact she was only 4 years old) Honestly, last time, my sis could really be a complete blabbermouth, hence she was telling my parents I had one, why doesn't she have one too - that sorta thang. Haha all sisters do go through that blabbing period when they're young.
My parents were like - what? How come you have a middle name? Who named you? I was like... OH NANA NOELINE! HAHAHA. Nana Noeline is a sweet friend of my parents, especially dear to my mum's heart - just a heads up, she went to be with Jesus quite a number of years back - yeah, but during our 2 years in Aussie, she was always meeting up with us, and I even got to go to her house and all that. I still remember we were about to leave her house, when she said she'd read Christian scriptures before going out. She hung them in many areas of her house. What a woman of God. :)
Nana is an Aussie slang for grandma, and so, she was already quite advanced in her age when I was there 12 years ago. I ever asked her why we call her Nana Noeline, instead of like grandma or sth to that point, to which she said it made her sound old & preferred Nana as a title haha so cute right. Over there, their culture isn't to call any older woman; auntie, like we all do over here in SG. They only refer aunts as their real blood-related aunts. Instead, if I were to call the mother/father of my friend, I wouldn't be all "Hello auntie/uncle!" - no way - I'm supposed to address them using Mrs/Mr Surname, like "Hello Mr/Mrs Bensley!"Yeah, it's more like respecting them as elders by calling them by name. They're all incredibly friendly though, I can still hear their Aussie accent's style of saying "hello". :D
Okay back to the story.
Last time, I had this tendency to be a bit mischievious, so when I replied my parents' question, I just told them Nana Noeline gave it to me. *She's prolly smiling at me in Heaven now hehe* Coz, I guess I didn't want them to think I was just making some rash decision to name myself. When they met up with Nana Noeline, they asked her about it, saying that maybe she can give one to Alexis too, which she was like "Oh I gave Cherlyn the middle name, Aurora?" I was there, wide-eyed, innocent, nodded my head and went "Yes you did." Thus, that solidified my middle name wahaha. My sister's middle name became "Joya", which signified a life of joy and cheerfulness - pretty nice I must say. So her name is Alexis Joya Tung Tzu Rui ;D When my sis reads this truth, she'll be like OMG YOU NEVER TOLD ME :OOO *raises sneaky eyebrows*
I wonder if I'll ever make it official in terms of name records (NRIC, passport etc.), I heard you've gotta cough up a sum of money in order to change your name - even partially. The deal breaker is obviously not the money, but whether I will want to put in an extra name I self-declared for myself when I was juvenile. I do love Aurora as my middle name though, goes quite nicely with my name, thank you very much. It's more of the reason that I love my name as it is, and whether I would wanna suddenly add in another name.
On the funny side, if you realise, those initials spell CAT. XD Ironically, I'm allergic to cats. Yep. Strange allergy O_O Found out 11 years ago when my family visited a friend's house in Aussie, and they had this ginger-haired cat which was superbly beyond fluffy and quite cute - and then I left the house with sore, swollen and itchy eyes, sneezing like mad, and felt sooooo ugh. 10 years later, I visited my poly mate's house for project work, it was a test of whether my allergy had vanished or not - coz she owns 2 cats. Lo and behold... before I left the house the allergy started T_T Boohoo. But it's alright, I don't have much adoration for cats anyway haha! Do I have any allergies towards dogs then? NOPE. THANK GOD. *cries with happiness* I absolutely love dogs, and plan on getting one in the near future - after I get back from Aussie. ;)
Talking about cats, there was this kerfuffle with kpop girl group f(x)'s Red Light lyrics, which involved the term "caterpillar", and KBS decided to be such a smartypants by telling them to switch out the lyrics, coz it was associated to the brand, Caterpillar (CAT) - I'm sure you've seen them around. It's a brand that dishes out construction equipment - yeah, that yellow crane/bulldozer. In the end they changed it to "infinite orbit" in Korean for KBS Music Bank, sounded great :3 I lovedddd their Red Light album, was such a wonderful listen of bass, beats and vocal melodies. <3 Go check them out!
Okie dokes, here's to the end of today's story about where "Aurora" truly originated from ^_^
Stay tuned,
Cherlyn Aurora xoxo
