Names, brands and other countless decisions in life

ALL of us begin our lives with one decision that we have no control over – our name.

We take our surname from our family in various ways: the Chinese from a common surname, and Muslims from their father’s name and so forth.

Our parents, or sometimes an elder or soothsayer or even a temple priest, would determine the name to identify you from the rest of your family, your clan and the general population.

In many families, there may be a certain ‘generational’ significance to your given name, be it denoted as a secondary name, or a retentive name.

I would give an example as to my own family, the Ongs.

Since my forefathers’ time, they were given a similar second name after the surname.

For example, Ong Ewe Hai, whose brothers were Ong Ewe Teck and Ong Ewe Chuan; thus, retaining the ‘Ewe’ to signify his generation.

His son was Ong Tiang Swee, whose brothers had also borne the middle name of ‘Tiang’.

However this tradition, for some odd reason, was broken during my grandfather Ong Kwan Hin’s generation: his brothers were named differently, viz Ong Eng Hin, Ong Hap Leong, Ong Hap Ann, and a second family took the names of Ong Tiaw Kok and Ong Tiaw Sian.

A good guess would have been that the family oracle or temple priest, at the time, had recommended this ‘breakaway’!

Up till my grandfather’s generation, the Ongs were devoted Buddhist/Taoist.

The tradition, nonetheless, reverted with the birth of my eldest uncle (the fourth generation to be born in Sarawak), Ong Kee Hui, the first of 10 sons and four daughters.

For the first time, this new generation was given Anglicised names as well. I was told that Grandpa Ong had decided that it would be easier for them to enrol into the Anglican English schools and would make life a lot easier for their (mostly English) teachers to remember Andrew (as was Kee Hui’s given English name) than the ‘trickier-to-remember’ Chinese ones.

From then onwards, despite the fact that a majority of the next few generations of Ongs had remained Buddhist, all of them were given both English and Chinese names.

A few had further embellished ones after they had become confirmed Catholics later on in life.

The trouble with English names tends to be that many of us were given names that were not so easy to pronounce by our elders or those who were not formally educated in English, including many nannies from China and others from extended families and other relatives.

There was an easy solution to those with ‘difficult-to-pronounce’ names: they were called ‘Ah Boy’ for males, and ‘Ah Girl’ for females. Issue solved!

Similarly when I was a boy with so many relatives to differentiate one from the other, all elderly ones I just called uncle or aunty number such and such; same generation but older than myself were either ’Ah Hia’ or ‘Ah Chee’!

Lots of Chinese families also like to nickname their children after animals: it is believed that the ‘Evil One’ would be less tempted to ‘steal away’ or cast bad spells upon those whose names sounded like animals; for instance the ‘Ah Toos’ (piglets), the ‘Ah Kows’ (dogs), the ‘Ah Leng’ (especially if one is of dark complexion), or ‘Ah Bai’ (ugly)!

The list is rather lengthy and goes even further as to denote age and ascending order as in ‘Tua Kow’ (‘Big Dog’), or ‘Kay Kia’ (‘Small Chicken!).

I actually knew real people who were named after all these examples. This moniker-naming habit continues to this modern day – amazingly!

Brands and the naming of products, both durable and consumables, are of great importance too. I started my career in the field of marketing and sales and in my five decades and more of experience in the profession, I have found that the majority of us tend to be very loyal to the brands that we have used, experienced and enjoyed since our very young days.

Let’s start from when we were born: mothers’ picks of powdered milk formulae would usually determine what brands we would choose for our own babies upon starting our own families.

This has changed slightly insofar that many brands popular during the 1950s up to 1970s may no longer be available; those that continuously rebrand or modernise their products still command a good market share.

I can still see the famous brands of cereals and foodstuffs like Nestum (from Nestlé), Kellogg’s, Heinz and Kraft still being around half a century later.

Many of the brands that I had marketed and were sold under the Inchcape Group and later, Sebor Sarawak, are still around. Quite a number are market brand leaders and have continued to remain in good demand today.

The big names would be from Nestlé, Unilever, Guinness, Kraft, Campbell’s, Bovril, Marmite, Johnson & Johnson, Scott (almost same name but two different companies: one is selling tissues, while the other – with apostrophe ‘s’ – is selling cod liver oil), ICI (paints, ammunitions, fertilizers), Lipton’s, and Gordon’s Gin.

The durables would be motor vehicles like Toyota, VW and Land Rover, and also Rolex, Sanyo, Ricoh, Fuji Film and General Electric.

Whenever I visit a supermarket to do my pantry shopping, I would have my list ready and just go about picking them off the shelves. More often than not, there would be a new brand up there on the shelf on display next to my regular ‘listed brand’.

I would take a look at it and chances are good that I would buy a bottle or a can just to try it out. Although as humans we tend to be creatures of habit, we are also somewhat curious and adventurous and would not mind trying out new stuff, especially food.

I believe that if you have a good product that has been well made, produced or created with a reputation of value for money, that serves its purpose well, and satisfies the consumers, you will be able to hold on to its loyalty and trust. You can depend on its continued business and the demand for it.

The other factor has to be consistency in the quality, whether it is in the taste and price if it is a consumable, or the durability and good after sales service if it is usable.

Many have fallen by the wayside due to not having satisfied these factors.

Finally, the availability and the continuity of being able to supply stocks and to replenish those empty shelves or showcases.

Some products, despite having been launched into the market with great fanfare, greeted with much enthusiasm and met with favourable consumer response, had failed to maintain their early success by going ‘out of stock’ so often that the same supporters’ interest had waned as their either returned to the former regular product, or moved on to a more reliable similar product with a constant supply chain.

Sadly, this has happened rather often.

Lastly you may have noticed that the world’s most successful and popular brands today have one thing in common in their names or branding – they are simple, easy to remember and catchy on the tongue.

Just look at Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Shell, Sony, Toyota, Huawei, and ‘The Borneo Post’ (haha – just couldn’t resist that one!).

That is my humble advice to you, dear readers: when naming a child, do think twice before giving him or her one that would be a tongue-twister or will forever be misspelled throughout his or her life.

Try not to go trendy as I still recall a time when I attended a confirmation where half the girls were named after that princess in ‘Frozen’!

When naming a new project, product or service, go for simplicity and ease-of-brand-recollection.

After all, who is going to remember your name if it is more than two or three syllables long, and is unpronounceable, or just unmemorable?

* The opinions expressed in this article are the columnist’s own and do not reflect the view of the newspaper.