When I was growing up, I didn’t like my name very much. I always thought ‘George’ was so uncool and wondered why my parents would give me such a name. All the kids making fun of it didn’t help either.

Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.

I guess I can be glad I didn’t grow up in the 2000s – I didn’t have to suffer from any George W. Bush flak. However, George H. W. Bush was president that time and fortunately he didn’t get that much hate (or I was too young to be aware of it).

Later on in life, it was all about George of the Jungle, which I guess wasn’t so bad either since people enjoyed the Brendan Fraser movie…right?

I remember wanting to be named Gus. Since I couldn’t change my name, I drew comics about a character named Gus who was supposed to be me. My first online handle was Gus091 (Gus was taken). I got excited watching the cartoon Recess because there was a character named Gus. My mom and sister made fun of me for wanting that name – they said it was disgusting (haha).

I don’t remember at what point in my life it was when I started embracing my name. But it was probably when I realized that having an English name, especially one that was in my official identification, was quite special in this country.

People always asked me, ‘is George your real name?’ My answers began with ‘yes, why would I call myself George?’ and eventually to just ‘yes’ and when I started embracing my name, ‘yes, it’s even on my birth cert’.

When I looked up the meaning of my name – farmer, I thought it was pretty cool. I mean sure, it’s no destroyer of worlds but hey – at least it wasn’t something lame like Baby Boi.

Who knows, maybe I’ll become a farmer one day and finally live up to my name. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And as for my Chinese name – that’s a story for another day. Kek.