Blood is thicker than water

I am the eldest in our family. I have three younger sisters and three younger brothers. As you can see from the names below, all the boys have "bon" 文 as the second character of our name and all the girls have "ca" 佳. The second character in all the boys are based on the generation poem that I mentioned in the introduction. Similar middle character means we belong to the same generation.

曾文明 Benjamin
曾佳琳 Ester
曾文順 Edison
曾文萬 Ivan
曾文聰 Milo
曾佳琪 Rizalynn
曾佳玲 Victorine

Many Chinoy likes to add a "na" after our name or nicknames when they call us. I was called Ben-na by my parents, siblings and cousins. My friends call me Benjie. When I came to America, people call me Ben.

I do not really know whether it is my father or my mother who came up with our names but he or she did a great job. The last character of Edison's Chinese name is pronounced "soon" in Hokkien which rhymes with his name. The last character of Ivan's Chinese name is pronounced "ban" in Hokkian which rhymes with his name.

The last two sisters has more interesting story to their name. Rizalynn was born on June 19 which is the birthday of our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, thus Rizalynn. Victorine was born on October 10th, which is the Independence Day of Republic of China, thus Victorine, as in victory. That's quite patriotic, isn't it?

Speaking of patriotism, that's how I name my son and daughter. The initials of their names are R. O. C. which is short for Republic of China. My son is Ryan Oliver Chan. My daughter is Rana Olivia Chan. It was fun for us to name them that way at that time, but I heard that they do not like their names.