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"Begin!" the examiner yelled.

But we couldn’t begin the national exam straightaway. Despite being identifiable by unique participant numbers, the other students and I still had to fill in the circles corresponding to our names. My friend had four official names. I had one. So I started right away and secretly laughed at my four-name friend’s misery.

Skip to several months later, when I had moved to Singapore to take an undergraduate course. My first conversation with a school administrator went something like this.

“Can I have your name, please?”
“Sylvia.”
“OK, your surname, please?”
“Err … none. Just Sylvia.”
“You don’t have a surname?” “No.”
“How come, lah?” “Err … like that, loh.”

In Singapore, where I now live, it’s almost impossible to not have a surname. For instance, members of the Malay community usually have their fathers’ names on their identity cards. It doesn’t matter if they already have two names or if their father’s name is very long. It can be Siti Nurbaya binte Mohammad Mahmud Shah for all they care.

In Indonesia, having just one name is not rare. Even our first two presidents were one-namers. Perhaps nobody really cared. Perhaps it was just for simplicity, as my father claimed.

My father only gave me one name. “Why the need for fancy names? Why do we need complicated things? Sylvia is easy and simple,” he would say whenever I would enquire.

Except it was not easy, let alone simple.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my name. It means “wooden” or “forest,” which is not exactly glamorous, but to me it exudes a feminine, yet quirky, vibe.

But quirky doesn’t always cut it. My beautiful name kept getting me into trouble, with ridiculous results. It first started when I needed to register for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). The online form asked for my last name. Having none, I left it blank. Then a red exclamation mark appeared — the form would not accept it. I decided to call the customer representative.

“Just put Sylvia as your last name,” she said, like she’d said it a million times.

“So I’ll be Sylvia Sylvia?” I asked, bewildered.

“Yes.” “Wouldn’t that be weird?”

“That is the only way.”

I successfully submitted the form, did the test, and got the transcript under the name “Sylvia/Sylvia.” At least that was better than the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), whose registration officer casually changed my first name to “Miss” and my last name to “Sylvia.”

The Sylvia Sylvia method continued for years. Even though I made myself an artificial full name for informal purposes, I continued to use Sylvia Sylvia for important functions such as bank accounts and flight bookings.

Of course, nothing could be more hilarious than Air Asia’s less than perfect personalization attempt. When I first registered for its newsletter, it stated clearly “If you only have one name, put it — as your first name and your last name.” Finally somebody that understands, I thought. It was fine and dandy until I received my first newsletter. It started with: “Dear —.”

Apart from funny troubles, the most fundamental problem for me is the matter of identity. Ever since primary school, I made myself artificial full names. It started with Sylvia Kristel, the name my mother claimed she had wanted to give me. It was the name of a famous actress, she said. Little did I know that the real Sylvia Kristel was infamous for her role in the soft-core porn movie “Emmanuelle.”

I have used different names since, usually related to my family’s actual Chinese surname (Bong). In 2006, I created an artificial full name that I use most frequently — Sylvia Giacinta Huang. Giacinta from my baptized name, and Huang from the Mandarin version of Bong.

My point is, I was never comfortable with my one name. I needed to create an identity to distinguish myself. That, and the fact that I couldn’t stand any more questions and bounced checks, was why I decided to change my name. Or rather added something to it.

After my last term at the university, I flew back and forth to Jakarta. Several months and several million rupiah later, I am now Sylvia A — “A” being my father’s name. I agreed to the change because adding my father’s name was supposed to make the process faster than changing it entirely to my name of choice (i.e. Sylvia Giacinta Huang). How they can call three months fast is a mystery. I do, however, continue to use Sylvia Giacinta for informal and professional purposes. I’m only Sylvia A to banks and immigration officers.


Sylvia Giacinta is an Indonesian student currently residing in Singapore.