• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

My name is Kai.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kai van Benthem
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
K

Kai van Benthem

Guest
Hello everyone,

My name is Kai. I'm not a German man as my name might allude to. I'm a born and bred Torontonian, living in Amsterdam.

- a Digital Producer by profession, Writer by passion.

Anyway, I'm a new member and thought better to follow-through with saying hi and uploading a profile pic but haven't anything else to say at this point. - I will soon though ...I think.

Thanks.
 
Welcome, Kai! Your name momentarily made me think you could be from New Zealand--Kai is a common name here. Means 'food' in Maori. Why people name their kids food, I don't know...sounds like an idea for a horror story, though... ;)
 
Thanks for the warm welcome! I'm happy to be here.
 
My full name is Sekai-Katie but I go by Kai --taking off the first two letters of the first part. My mother is from the Netherlands originally, and my father Zimbabwe. I was raised by my mom who always called me Kai and though I think the name Sekai is nice, it has very personal negative feelings tied to it from childhood that I dislike having to explain when I say where Kai originated for me as most people tend to bang on about how they like the name Sekai (some even going so far as saying that they're going to go ahead and call me 'Sekai') in a way that I think they are trying to bond with me or express how culturally interested they are or something. It never really gets the same abbreviated respect as say someone might get if their name was Elizabeth and go by Liz or Matt for Matthew so unless I'm asked I don't tend to share.

However funny you are irritated by being called a French name because it's not from your heritage. I named my daughter a French name and her dad and I have no French connection. We just liked the name and think it's a free world. I'm an advocate of there being only one true race as well (-human, even though it sounds terribly corny) ...my daughter's middle name is Greek/Russian (no direct link there either other than my best friend being Greek) and what the name stands for-it's meaning, is what we wanted to pass on to her. I'm proud of it and hope she will be as well. It's a free world.
 
Last edited:
...had some typos there! --Probably not so good for a writers group. I shall try and reframe from posting while on commute in future. Anyway, I guess I've said a lot about myself with my name here. I guess like all of us, I have strong opinions about some things. One of them being that I believe that cohesive communities worthy of validation are better firmed by commonalities in spirit etc.
 
Last edited:
Lex Black said:
Welcome to the Colony! If you're not German, would you be offended if I ask how you came about the name? I have a similar situation: though born and bred in the continental US, my parents gave me a very French name (and I have never forgiven them for it).
Click to expand...
- Maybe your parents felt it too limiting to find a name that suited your essence with sticking to choosing from within the pool of names belonging to where they or their parents were from. Or maybe they had an affinity to things French.
 
Well, hey, my mom gave me an English name, but added the French feminine ending to it--how nutty is that? (particularly since there are few English and no French in my ancestry...)

And here, you see, Kai, the Litopian struggle to stay on topic....was that writing we were supposed to be talking about? ;)
 
Welcome Kai. Names are interesting and our personal reactions our own names can be powerful. I'm Chinese so when I came to England my name was translated to Nan and at school I got called all the silly nicknames you can think of (Granny/ Nanny/ Nanny-goat etc Bad memories :P). The original spelling of my name was even worse: 'Ngan' but the 'g' is silent so as an adult I changed my spelling to help with the pronunciation; they NEVER got it right. :D


It was my father who gave my name which, with my middle name, means Sea-shore or more accurately Sea-coast (but Sea-shore sounds better :D, hence I've used this as my user name here). My brothers are twins and when their names are put together, it means vast and expansive - like how you would describe the ocean or the outer space. When this is translated to English however, all the poetry of the words are lost. :rolleyes:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Café Life Tag Cloud

agent author authors book books cafe calls for submissions competition conferences contests creative writing editing fantasy fear fiction genre greetings huddle inspiration life literature litopia motivation new new member novel novels november philosophy poetry publishing reading romance science fiction self-publishing short stories short story stories story submissions time vanity winners words world writer writers writing writing contests zodiac

Similar threads

Still Waters
Help Please! Advice on Using a Pen Name
Replies
22
Views
344
Sedayne
Sedayne
From Our Blog
Blog Post: Titles: What’s in a Name?
Replies
17
Views
514
Hannah F
Hannah F
Back
Top