What's in a name?

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
William Shakespeare

I've been known to my friends by my first or my middle name. Sometimes I introduce my self with one or the other depending on how I feel or the person I am with, or which one I think easier for the new person to remember.

Sometimes those who at first knew me by my first name prefer to call me by my middle name, sometimes it's the other way around. It's cool.

Sometimes it leads to an interesting conversation like the one I had with U. He introduced me to his Chinese colleague who just moved to lowland from the US of A. U prefers to call me Triesti, eventhough when we first met I introduced myself using my middle name. So, he always introduced me as Triesti, and he introduced that gal with some fancy Western name. I was preoccupied with something else when I shook her hand and said my middle name. Now, being (mainland) Chinese, she asked if 'Triesti' is my Western name since my middle name is very Asian sounding. Then started the whole discussion about Chinese and Indonesian names and also Russian nicknames.

(Most) Indonesian Chinese has two names, Chinese and local/western name. But the origins of this practice is slightly different than their mainland Chinese counterpart. Back in the 60's, Indonesian government encourage Chinese Indonesian to take up local name in order to assimilate. The later generation however can be split into two groups. Those who just kept their Indonesian name, and those who kept both names. In the latter group, however, most of the time the Chinese name is not on their official papers.

Speaking of names, I think most Indonesian is known with 3 names. First, the official name, second the personal name, and nickname(s). Take Indonesian former president Megawati, her official name is Megawati Sukarnoputri, people call her Mega or Ega, but her family call her Adis. I wonder what her hubby calls her?