Name Calling

Eversince we started school, our teachers have told us not to call other people 'names' or rather nicknames that would irritate or embarrass others.

However, this habit of name-calling among children have always been there, and probably will never go away. It is prominent when a group of children ostracize an individual or a few persons. Especially, if they stand out from the class in a very different way.

Most of us have heard of such names, some point in our school life; be it called to ourselves or to another person. More often, they sound unpleasant and most 'victim' would not want to be reminded of them. Names like, 'Potato Head', 'Fatty Bom-Bom', 'Giraffe', 'Donkey', 'Elephant' often used with association with the individual's physical attributes are used. Whereas names like, 'Greedy pig', 'Dopey', 'Cry-baby', 'Chatter-box' are used on character attributes.


In my years in school, I was also subjected to name-calling by classmates. 'Fatty Steamer', 'Donald Duck', 'Duckling'...the list goes on. I usually respond with my textbook landing on the person's back.

Generally, name-calling is bad, and discouraged among people, be it children or adults. However, I would like to highlight certain situations that I have come across as innovative, affectionate and projects a sense of belonging among people.

As a Singaporean male, most of the name-calling occurred in the Army. Every possible nickname under the sun will pop out, one way or another. We don't have cool nicknames like 'Maverick', 'Cougar' and 'Wizard' like in the Top Gun movie. Singaporean army nicks are more localise, just like our food, they are Uniquely Singapore.

Examples are ; 'BoBo King' (meaning one who cannot aim and misses the target even it is 10m in front of him), 'LoBo King' (meaning one who always skives; while adding the person surname like Chan as in 'Lobo Chan', will make it more unique and intimate), 'Starplayer' (in a sarcastic way, as this person usually causes the downfall of the group), 'Gan Cheong Spider' (Gan Cheong is Hokkien for being nervous, and spider is to describe the person having 8 limbs but still cannot cope), 'F**K spider (same meaning as fly kite), Chao Keng Kiat (similar meaning to Lobo King but this guy uses all means to feign injuries to get himself out of things), 'On the ball' (used on individuals who are perfectionist and strict about everything), Kun Xin ( meaning 'God of Sleep', refers to one who can sleep anywhere, anytime, anyplace)

Those names which I have encountered and are pretty unique are the following:

1) Ah Fat (used on one of our more well-rounded friend)
2) XP (at the time when Windows XP was launch, XP stands for xiao pang, literally meaning Little Fatty)
3) Potato Head (there was this guy who wasn't very good in speaking Mandarin, and was speaking English most of the time)
4) Dutch (this poor and confused guy who had to come back from Holland just to serve NS)
5) Starplayer (as above)
6) Koo Jui (meaning water in Hokkien, as this guy's name is pronounced in the same way)
7) Kup Po ('frog' in Hokkien, due to a teacher's mispronounciation of his name)
8) Chilli Padi (used on a very short and argumentative individual)
9) 'Siberia' (not used on a person, but on my school courtyard, where students were 'exiled' for not doing there homework and had to stay there with their desks and chairs for the duration of the class)
10) Koropok (not the prawn crackers but for a ritual where unsuspecting individuals are pulled into a corner and punched and kicked for a brief moment, usually done on birthday boys or during intervals between lessons)

Coincidently, most of these name-callings happened during my time in a boys' school and in the army, where there were zero females.

We never did kill anyone who used names, but just made up some names to return the favour. After a while, calling their nicknames became a habit and has stuck with some of them ever since. Especially, when it brings back fond memories and occasional chuckles of the fun times we had.

Those were the days.

I guess calling people names are not all that bad after all.