A rose by any other name

The other day my small group was talking about sexy names to name your child, and the few of them that happened to know my Christian name began to jibe me about it.

That got me thinking that although my name is, by consensus, decidedly a bad name for a person, it does make for great pick-up lines.

Like, 'Hi, I'm _____, and I'm yours, eternally.'

Or, 'Being with you makes me, me. I'm _____.'

Et cetera.

However, I realise that these lines would most likely be met with hearty guffaws and questions like, 'So, what's your name, really?'

I thought perhaps my Chinese name would hold more hope for me, so I went to find out what it actually meant. And you know what? I found out that my parents were not satisfied in making my life unbearable in English. They had to do it in Chinese too.

I found out that I'm a tonka bean (it's like vanilla, only with rather an edge). My name, literally translated, means New Tonka Bean. New Tonka Bean King.

I can go open a candy store - with my feel-good English name, and my vanilla-sweet Chinese name, I'm sure it'd be a hit. Although knowing Asian family values, I'd probably be disowned.