Last Name

Argh!!! Guys, Guys, Girls, my last name (surname) is not Maung. Officially, it is Maung in my Identification registrations but Maung is not even my name.

First of all, Burmese do not have a surname. We don't use father's name strictly either, like the Malays, Indians and some Scandinavians. The mother and father will give offsprings similar names and often takes from the father. An example would be:

Father: Soe Myo Min

Mother: Su Nandar Win

Son: Aung Kyaw Min

Son: Aung Naing Min

Daughter: Moe Moe Win

Okay, these names don't make sense, but they are examples.

Although the word Maung could be part of a real name in Burmese culture, Maung also means young Mister. Older adults will be called U (pron. as Oo). For females, young miss is Ma and elder miss is Daw. So if your name is Joe Vladimir and you are 14 years old, you'd be called Maung Joe Vladimir. If you are 40 yrs old, U Joe Vladimir. It works like San in Japanese, not totally, but that's the idea. So if your name is Min Htun, you'd be called Maung Min Htun or U Min Htun.

You do not have to include Maung or U in IDs, although it's normal (thought optional) in Myanmar. My Dad put it in my name. So my name became Maung Hein Htet Soe. There's also a @ with my original name Hein Htet Soe. In Singapore, teachers go by the latter, and from primary 2 to pri 6, they call me Htet Soe, because they thought Hein is my surname as chinese culture has the surname infront. Htet Soe doesn't sound right.

My name is easy to pronounce, at least to my friends in US, surprisingly. What makes it hard to pronounce is that it's hard to know the right way to say it from the way it's spelled. If I tell you how exactly, verbally, you'd find it rather easy. But when I was young, I was shy, I dun like to correct all my teachers and schoolmates who got it wrong. So I let it be... but I was frustrated with that, so in primary 6 I introduced the name Sean. But I remember one of my closest friends since pri 2, Wilson, pronounced Hein Htet Soe correctly, very well.

When filling in immigration papers, for some reasons, Maung became my last name, Soe became my middle name, initial.

So I don't have a surname. I'm happy to make either Soe or Hein as my last name. I have to convince one of my friends in US so hard, you know who you are, that Maung is not my last name. And it's not because I don't like it, or because it got arranged wrongly. It's not part of my name in the first place. It's mister. Not my name. Soe would be my sensible surname because it's part of my father's name. But for now, I'm trying out Hein as my last name.

I do have a chinese name, with the surname Song. Actually the name is formed to sound like my burmese name. Song Hai (Sea) Te (Special), Soe Hein Htet. My tuition teacher formed it for me in primary school. So in chinese class I go by Hai Te.