The Name Game

Okay, right off the bat, I’ll explain the name, last name first: Khan. Straight up, it’s a gift from my first husband, a charming but not terribly reliable Pakistani fellow. When the marriage foundered (due to far more than the culture gap), I kept the name. It does have a rather good sound to it, don’t you think? Plus, I wanted to share it with our young son. And nothing quite got the attention of misbehaving young boys in those days than mentioning the Wrath of Khan. That was right up there with having eyes in the back of your head.

As for my first name, Lakin (pronunciation hint: see blog title), I acquired that from my father’s mother’s family, the Lakins, who, the story goes, had come over from Wales to Boston, Mass. in the days of clipper ships. My mother was first generation Finnish; some assume my first name to be Finnish, but then it would have been spelled Lakkin, or something like that.

In Urdu, lakin means but as in if, and, but; my first set of in-laws probably couldn’t quite believe what they were hearing. Aleikum asalaam, Brother Fazal, I’d like you to meet my wife, But. Aside from the symbolic representation of a wife as a conjunction, translating the word back into English only caused more hilarity, as the homophone brought further connotations (naughty, embarrassing, mind-boggling, take your pick) to mind.

And there you have it: Lakin Khan, a name that at first hearing causes many to imagine they are going to meet a small round brown man, none of which I am, except for the round part. Taken together the names seem to imply that I am Welsh Muslim. Nothing could be farther from the truth; I’m much more of a Finnish Unitarian Buddhist.