Why SO Weird (to Westerners)
You're looking for information on the Thai chue len.
We might say "nickname" but the actual translation is "play name." And it's what an anthropologist might call a "use name." So this is the name you go by IRL, not necessarily your legal name.
First I should say that this is a lot more common than westerns realize, especially in the past. Many Roman women, for example, were known / operated under what amounts to a chue len. And it was probubly quite common among the lower classes in Ancient Egypt and Greece, too. But since the poor and females are chronically understudied there isn’t a ton of data (or written record, for that matter).
The chue len has to do in part with the history of names in Thailand, and the fact that until relatively recently most people only had a given name + a chue len, and then when government regulations went into effect mandating a last names it quickly became really complicated.
You can read a great article on Thai naming conventions here. It’s fun to learn about. I highly recommend it. And I am going to assume you did read it and now talk only about the bits left out and odd.
The bit most BL watchers ask me about is answered in this statement:
“Many Thai nicknames are derived from English words. They may be English sounding names (such as ‘Anna’) or more obscure words that are chosen for their meaning, e.g. Book (symbolising intelligence), Bank (symbolising wealth).”
However, like most English words used in Thai, they aren’t pronounced the way we would pronounce them. (Hell when have you ever heard an American pronounce something like a Brit, anyway?)
One amusing example of a borrowed word is “bur” which is Thai for “phone number.” It’s our word, but they made it... better. You can watch Dean ask for Pharm’s digits using just this one word (in the scene where he drops him off for the first time in UWMA).
What the article I cited above doesn't say about chue len is that sometimes they are chosen for fun/silly as a baby name (like fatty) and then changed by the person themselves at any point in their life.
You can opt to change your chue len whenever you want, since it's not a legal name. Also it’s common to have different ones with different groups (so one for friends, another for family, one for the public if you’re a celebrity, another for your lover).
Daonuea (literally starnorth AKA Polaris or the Northstar) in Star in My Mind does this, he uses two: Nuea with friends, Dao with intimates.
I hope you can see how in a language where you use your OWN NAME for the I pronoun regularly, this is VERY easy to do?
Also, the article doesn’t say that a chue len can also be based on a popular band/idol/actor at the time of birth. I understand from my Thai bestie that Golf/Gulf was one of these for a while back in the 90s? I think.
Anyway, I also found Thai names odd to start, now I barely notice or register. Partly because what we read in English captions often doesn’t really sound like what’s being said.
For example, both Tine & Type sound the same to me, like Tyyyyee.
Also I amuse myself with wondering how they got that name. Like if a baby is named Bbomb - erm, did they blow out their diaper all the time? Probubly not because that’s very English culture specific, but I’m still amused. Was War a really violent child? Are all those Flukes happy accidents? Why is Gameplay called Gameplay? Was he a big gamer who chose it for himself? Or did his parents get together because of an in-game romance?
It’s fun to think about the reason, because there usually is one.
There’s another naming convention the article doesn’t really talk about, which is all the chue lens amongst siblings often either rhyme (e.g. Win & Lin in Cupid’s Last Wish) or start with the same letter.
Thai BL Kpop idol Bambam of GOT7 talks about this (he and his sibs all have B names). And also, hilariously, the fact that he actually doesn’t know his own brother’s given name because they have always just used the chue len with each other so he never had to learn it.
Some actors will take and go by (at least for a time) a more western sounding name (Phoom --> Pavel) but you’ll hear their Thai friends using their Thai name or a different chue len (much like some Korean idols). Others will go by a Thai name for in country work (Stewart --> Perth).
Actors choice of names (like in Hollywood and with Kpop idols) will also take into account whether there is already a very famous actor using that name (or several) and they will shift accordingly.
There is an episode of 2022′s Safe House where GMMTV actors all talk about their use names and where they come from and their siblings names etc... but no one ever translated it and I’m a dumbass who didn’t save that ep to link, sorry.
Here on Tumblr we tend to tag actors by their chue len + given name, partly because many actors choose that as their social media handles on IG etc...
Finally, you can watch Perth talk about some of this here on his YT channel.
from a question from @doorajar and later @fangirlshrewt97
Here’s a funny YT video on the subject for you.
