Akar Nusa
At a government counter, a clerk writes a name into a form. Someone behind says "bin", someone else "a/l", a third spells Tan one way and Chin another. Each name has its own rules.
The story
Malaysia has more than one way of naming a person, and each came from a different history.
Malay names. A person has a given name, usually followed by a patronym: "bin" (son of) for a man and "binti" (daughter of) for a woman, then the father's given name. A woman keeps her name when she marries. In daily life many leave out bin or binti. Titles such as Tengku, Syed or Sharifah, and Wan are passed down and appear in official records. Haji and Hajjah are used for someone who has been on Hajj.
Indian names. Officially they use "a/l" (anak lelaki, son of) or "a/p" (anak perempuan, daughter of) before the father's name. Because the father's name changes each generation, there is no family surname.
Chinese names. The surname comes first, then a given name of two characters. The surname passes from father to child. Spelling is not fixed, because Malaysia has no official romanisation. The same surname, 陈, appears as Tan (Hokkien), Chan (Cantonese), Chin (Hakka), Ding or Ting (Foochow, Henghua) and Tang (Teochew). And "Ng" can stand for 黄 or for 吴.
Orang Asli and peoples of Sabah and Sarawak. The Orang Asli and many Sarawak native peoples use "anak" (child of) for a patronym. Some in Sabah and Sarawak use bin or binti, and others use a family name from the father. Kadazandusun people often join a Christian given name with a father's or ethnic name. Kristang families often carry Portuguese-style names.
Where you can still see it today
- A wedding list or school register: every pattern in one room.
- Surnames on shops in a town: the spellings often show the family's dialect.
- Titles on invitations: Datuk, Tan Sri, Haji and many more.
- The national registration office, which sets rules for names.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
A patronym such as bin or a/l carries only the father's first name. It tells about one step back and changes every generation, so it cannot follow a line.
A Chinese surname is different. It passes down the male line, as the Y chromosome does. A Chinese study found that surname patterns have been stable and continuous since the Song dynasty, and that they parallel the Y chromosome. So a surname can hint at a father line. But it is only a hint: the same romanised surname can come from different characters, and a family may have taken a name for other reasons.
A name does not prove ancestry, race, religion or bumiputera status. Chinese and Indian Muslims may use Arabic names, and many people have names from a community other than their own. Only family and community decide who a person is.
