what's in a name?

a search for 'yangie' on dictionary.com showed no results. the suggestions given were as follows:
Yank, Yankee, Yenisei, Yenisey, young.
the same search on m-w.com (merriam-webster) showed these options:
yagi, yeaning, yenning, yarn-dye, yenned, Yemeni, yeaned, Yenan, yenta, Yan'an.
none of which comes anywhere close to explaining the curious origin of this ridiculously sounding name.
so! let us dig further.

brief history

who are you?

what does it all mean?

what does it really mean?

bottom line

BRIEF HISTORY in the year 1995, during my second semester of my freshman year at cooper city high school in broward county, florida, i was introduced to AOL. although i now actively discourage the use of AOL (other than using AIM to keep in touch with my friends), back then i was very much hooked on the various chat rooms available. my dear friend toni dubbed me 'yangie', and over the years i've used this name for all online purposes.

WHO ARE YOU? about a month before my first day of school at calle mayor midde in torrance, california, my uncle sat me down and gave me a short speech: "it would be a good idea for you to pick a name which would be easy for other kids to use. here are some suggestions: " and with that i was presented with a list of names to choose from. the list included 'maria', 'anita', and 'angela'. unsatisfied with any of the nominees, uncle offered variations of these names. thus we came upon 'angie', which had a nice ring to my ears. after affirming that i had the choice to be called 'angie' and never 'angela', which i diskliked strongly, i settled for the name and have used it for all vernacular puposes.

'angie' may have a nice ring to my ears and easy for introductions and friends to remember. but that strange combination of characters is my real name. in mandarin, surnames come before first names. 'james bond' becomes 'bond james', and 'jesus christ' becomes 'christ jesus'. so 'yan-chi tung', which looks like

-

is really 'tung yan chi', without the dash. 'tung' is pronunced more like 'tong' than 'tongue'; according to m-w.com, 'tong' is

a secret society or fraternal organization especially of Chinese in the U.S. formerly notorious for gang warfare

and so the taiwanese immergration book of english spellings of chinese names probably figured that translating the family name to 'tong' would be not so good of an idea. 'yan' is pronunced like 'can', 'ban', 'tan', 'dan', 'fan', 'jan', 'man', and various other -an's. it is not pronunced like 'wan', which is less commonly used than any of the other -an's. so it troubles me when the first stabs at pronuncing 'yan' rhyms with 'wan' and not the others. finally, the 'i' in 'chi' is pronuced like the 'ee' in 'gee', 'flee', and 'glee'. often it is pronuced as the 22nd letter of the greek alphabet, which bothers me even more so than the 'yan' pronunciation confusion because of my strong detestation toward the college greek life.
'yan-chi tung' is the most direct translation of my name from mandarin; although i had the choice of changing my name when i became a u.s. citizen, i decided to hang on to it for the sake of uncomformity, and have used it for all legal purposes.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? the name 'angie' is a form of the greek name 'angela,' which means heavenly messenger, or an angel. a search for 'angie' on dictionary.com results:

Angie, LA (village, FIPS 2165)
Location: 30.96395 N, 89.81581 W
Population (1990): 235 (111 housing units)
Area: 3.9 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
Zip code(s): 70426

i'd like to pay a visit one day.

dictionary.com gave no entries for 'tung'. however, m-w.com had this:

tung tree [n]: any of several trees (genus Aleurites) of the spurge family whose seeds yield tung oil; especially : an Asian tree (A. fordii) widely grown in warm regions;

for 'yan', both dictionary.com and m-w.com offered suggestions but no entries, except under 'acronym definition@amazon.com' (found using dictionary.com), where 'yan' has this result:

YAN - Yancey Railroad Company

nice to know, if i ever want to visit angie, LA.

'chi' proved to be the most informative. aside from being a part of the greek alphabet, 'chi' also has the following definitions:

chi [n]: air, spirit, energy of life; The vital force believed in Taoism and other Chinese thought to be inherent in all things. The unimpeded circulation of chi and a balance of its negative and positive forms in the body are held to be essential to good health in traditional Chinese medicine.

and also, from 'acronym definition@amazon.com', this list:

CHI Cambridge Healthtech Institute
CHI Centre for Health Informatics (UK)
CHI Champlin Oil and Refining Company
CHI Chicago, Illinois, USA (Chi town)
CHI Chinese Language/Langue Chinois
CHI Church Handbook of Instructions (Mormon Church)

CHI Claim History Inquiry (insurance)
CHI Commission for Health Improvement (UK government organization)
CHI Computer-Human Interface
CHI Consumer Health Informatics
CHI Consumer Health Information
CHI Cultural Homestay International

from this list i pulled out one entry which doesn't quite belong:

CHI Champlin Oil and Refining Company

if you have an answer as to why 'champlin oil and refining company' has the acronym of 'CHI', please send me an email.

WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN? often i get asked if i know the meaning of the name 'yan-chi'. since many characters in mandarin are pronounced the same and written differently, i needed to find the correct characters and then define them one at a time. according to the chinese character dictionary,

tung - 1. [n] child; minor; virgin; 2. [adj] bare; barren (land, etc.); 3. [n] a Chinese family name
yan - [n] the wild goose
chi - 1. [n] a kind of jade; 2. [n] same as $; 3. [adj] outstanding; extraordinary; distinguished; admirable

which brings me to my conclusion: the name means 'a bare virgin, which is a type of jade that could be used as currency, that is like an outstanding, extraordinary, distinguished, and admirable wild goose.'
.......................................
well. what do you think it means?

BOTTOM LINE so, getting back to the original point, 'yangie' was simply a combination of my translated name and the english name i chose for myself:

(yanchi - chi) + (angie - an) = yan + gie = yangie

now you know. and knowing is half the battle.