My buddy Micke and his Japanese college room mate:
"I'm Ken Nakamura. Ken means 'heresy'!"
"Really? That's kind of... odd."
"Yes! It means 'HERESY'! Rike when you are never sick!"
"Ahaaa, you mean 'healthy'..."
"Yes! Correct! What does your name mean?"
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The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 11
Table of Contents
Chapter 13
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It would be SO cool if my name meant "heresy"...
@Ken: Try and find (or invent) a language where it does.
Heresy sounds like a cool name.. :)
Speaking of cool names, I knew my linguistic skills had reached new heights when I learned to say the name of movie actor Charles Bronson in Cantonese.
Repeat after me: Cha-lay-see Beh-lon-son.
In fact, I think the name "Ashemok" (who figures in the Arda Viraf) actually means 'heretic'. I will look it up in the commented edition I have at work.
/ Mattias
I had never heard of the Arda Viraf before, but Wikipedia tells me that it is a piece of mid-1st millennium Zoroastrian religious scripture. In the 1st chapter, we read:
"7. And this religion, namely, all the Avesta and Zand, written upon prepared cow-skins, and with gold ink, was deposited in the archives, in Stakhar Papakan, (8) and the hostility of the evil-destined, wicked Ashemok, the evil-doer, brought onward Alexander, the Roman, who was dwelling in Egypt, and he burned them up."
Bad, bad Alexander. Apparently Ashemok is mentioned only once in the Arda Viraf. You are scarily erudite, Matte!
And then there is of course Akhenaten aka Echnaton the Heretic. Wouldn't it be cool to be named after an offbeat Pharaoh?
Or an Assyrian king. Tukulti-apil-Esharra III, for example.
I looked it up, Ashemok does indeed mean 'heretic'. I just remembered it since a friend who is a farsologist told me this when we once discussed the Arda Viraf. So it's not erudition, just plain memory.
/ Mattias