since you asked...

i not sure why seepoy. i think it was just a chinee-esque designation without having to go with wong. especially since something like wong wouldn't really be funny, due to the relatively large number of wongs in trinbago. nobody would get that it was a joke and not his actual name. half our wongs don't even look like wongs, so who would doubt his wong-ness? and even seepoy is better than his son getting stuck with alpacino...
but there's a whole name thing anyway: basil's family started out as ho's. and when the first ho came to trini on the boat and officials asked him his name, he didn't speak english and couldn't respond, so they just renamed him smith (john, i believe). my grandmother's maiden name was kondika (her parents were indian missionaries- i think- who came over as young adults) and my mom never forgave her for trading in kondika for something as lame as smith. but coming from smiths, i feel relatively confident, with full knowledge of how many people there are on this planet, that nobody else carries the same 3 names i do. when i was younger and hadn't realised the beauty of non-conformity, i actually didn't like it much, because i spent too much time repeating my name and its spelling for people who'd never heard it before. it felt like a burden. to date, i've only met 2 other people with the same 1st name. my middle name is my fanti day name (father's from ghana), and my last is a european slave owner's name bestowed up some bastard child. my mother only calls me by my 1st name and my father only by my middle name (he said my 1st name once, in my late teens, and it sounded funny so i asked him never to do it again). i can't even pronounce my middle name quite right because my dad's ghanaian with a slight british accent when speaking english, and i was born+raised in trini, so we don't have the same accent. i never tell americans my middle name because inevitably, they try to repeat it, which becomes a trini trying to teach an american to say a fanti word. it gets ugly and i can't stand to hear it.
and now that i think about it, i can think of a coupla friends (just a couple), all trini, who have very unique name combinations, partially because in trinbago so many ethnicities mix, joining together 1st and last names that barely know of each other's existence in the wider world and never come into contact, making new people who look nothing like any of their names (ent, keif)...

anyway, i actually came here to say something else, but i read jj's comment and it set my brain running.
what i initially came to say is: jon stewart disappointed me for the 1st time last night, and i'm heartbroken.
he had this dude on talking about his book (goliath-related title, can't remember the author because i got too upset) who was basically saying that america's the world's goliath and that even when other countries complain about america's tactics/policies, they still support the ends if not the means because if they didn't like america's agenda, they'd all get together and gang up on america to stop it. and i was stunned that jon stewart, who i'd previously loved so passionately, went along, and never pointed out to this dumb dude that many of the countries who do disagree with america's everything are smaller, less developed countries who fear for resources and infrastructure like trade agreements, or simply fear the wrath of goliath and possible political blackmail. grrr! how could you forget us, jon?
then stephen colbert followed by opening his show with that song "this land is your land, this land is my land, this land is made for you+me", which was, of course, in his usual satirical vein, but that song pisses me off so fucking much! this land was not fucking made for them! they stole this blighted continent!
breathe.
alright. i have to bathe now, before my head explodes.
the jon stewart betrayal just re-upset me in a way i did not expect, and i plan to have a good friday night, so i bathing and heading out to lime and possibly fete after.
walk good.