Nick: What's In A Name?

I am the eldest in my family. My wife too. When our children were born siblings from both sides were ecstatic.

In the olden times family members were given nicknames equivalent to their 'rank'; the firstborn by convention is Long, followed by Ngah, then Lang, Anjang, Uteh, Uda, Adik, Usu, something of this order. Apparently this is no longer 'cool' and thus my children uncles, aunts and grands came up will all sort of 'cooler', in-trend nicknames. Among interesting ones sounds like Auntie Long, Uncle B, Mak Na, Tok Burn, Ayah Sham, Tok An... you get the idea.

I never really cared for what the hordes of second cousins call me. Mostly, to them I'm Uncle Jie. That's it, until my very first nephew was born last Thursday. Suddenly I felt some kind of weird pressure of coming up with a decent 'unclish' nickname, but what would it be?

It could not be Uncle Jie. 'Keji', in Malay, means 'despicable'... can't have that for a nickname. Or Uncle D (for Dragon, of course :p ) but 'Kedi' in Malay means transvestite... er... Maybe Uncle Long, but 'Angklung' is a traditional Malayan musical instrument... reject! Or simply Pak Long, but say that too many times it would sound like 'Polong', an infamous Malayan monster/specter/ghost... ish! Certainly not Pak Ajie, that is the very image of an old man in kopiah who has been on Hajj to Makkah... nope, anything with 'Pak' would not do.

So what? I honestly don't know... yet.

Congratulations to my brother Bob (the small bird LOLxD) and wife in hitting this joyous milestone in life. It will be tough, but you will be loving it nevertheless. To newborn little bird Aqid who doesn't even have a full name yet, I welcome you to the world. In the end it doesn't matter what you call me, you are already in my 'duit raya' roster.