Your Name; Tells a Story!
Posted on 25 August 2011
I was in my World History class on Tuesday (It was the first day of class for this particular course, odd how school started on a Wednesday), while my professor was introducing herself she has said “My name tell’s a Story about who I am and so does yours”. She then introduced herself and she told us the story of her name; it got me thinking, she is right, every name does tell who we are; a story of our selves.
As you all know, my name is Ze Moua (I should really stop using my real name online just because!) and here is my story.
Well, actually technically that is my LEGAL name, not my REAL Hmong name 
but for this post I’ll use my BIRTH name, not my Legal name nor my HMONG name. If you were to go back to one of my very first post (3 years ago, it’ll explain, happy searching).
Maiv Nyiaj Muas (Mai Nhia Moua) :::
Maiv:: daughter/girl
Nyiaj:: money/wealth
Muas:: my clan name
So my story here is, I am FULL Blooded Hmong, a daughter of the Moua Clan and with my name I am hope to live life with wealth and richness. My parent’s are poor farmers who had fled from Laos to Thailand in search of freedom who then settle here in America.
My name isn’t all that interesting but I am sure many of you have a beautiful story in your name, especially if you are mixed or your parents are living the American dream, adapting to the America society by giving you an American name with maybe a middle Hmong Name (or vise versa) and then your last name. Your name may have different meanings and or have different and or mixture of different culture and tradition in them.
2 responses to Your Name; Tells a Story!
I think we could tell an Asian person’s nationality just by looking at their last name. I thought it’s obvious but I guess not because I noticed that most of my American co-workers can’t tell by looking at the last name.
Nye, with Asian last name, I agree Americans cannot tell apart which last names belongs to which type of Asian although us Asian can.