Naming my Blog

A major hurdle in the journey was giving the blog a name. I had a rough idea of what I wanted (and what I didn’t want), but not much of a clue beyond that.

I knew that I didn’t want my name in it – to protect the identities of the people I write about, (and also myself from defamation lawsuits) and also because I wanted to attract a readership beyond those who know me. (Then again, those who know me might not want to read about me. So not inserting my name might actually make them want to read).

I wanted to communicate with other wives and mothers, so I knew that the name would contain the word ‘mum’.

I wanted something that reflected me. So I consulted the people who know and love me best, a Family Friend and my Hubby (the kids were not around to be consulted). These were some of their suggestions:

www.blurandclumsy.blogspot.com
www.theycallmeblur.blogspot.com

(Note to non-Malaysian/non-Singaporean readers: the word ‘blur’ here means confused/ befuddled/bumbling)

Okay, so I’m something of a bumbling klutz. Let’s just say that the catalogue of my accidents, falls and misadventures would provide plenty of fodder for future posts. Obviously, Hubby (the number 1 victim of my misadventures) thinks so too, since he was the one who offered the first name! (The second was enthusiastically offered by the friend. Between the 2 of them, they seemed to be having a lot of fun with the naming exercise, affording me a rare glimpse into what male bonding is all about – in this instance, having a good laugh at the expense of someone else). Anyway, Hubby redeemed himself somewhat with his next suggestion:

www.BYE.blogspot.com – BYE is an acronym for Blur Yet Effective. Personally, I felt this might be a little prophetic – with a cryptic name like that, I might as well be saying goodbye to any hopes of success for my blog. So that suggestion was scrapped as well. Incidentally, I ditched the first two listed above as I didn’t want to attract overseas readers with eyesight problems, and risk them feeling even worse about their eyesight as they searched in vain for information about eye ailments.

Other suggestions:

www.twistedmum.blogspot.com – This I vetoed on the grounds that I didn’t want to attract weirdos and perverts.

www.2kidsandamum.blogspot.com – This was an attractive proposition, but a bit limiting cos I’m not entirely sure my childbearing days are over. Also, it didn’t make any mention of Hubby, and I guess he does play a role in my being a mum :-)

www.theycallmemum.blogspot.com – Yet another one I seriously considered, cos since my oldest child could talk (a feat accomplished about 5 years ago), I’ve gone for days at a time thinking my name was MUM. Now that they’re older, my name has expanded from plain old MUM to ‘Mum-look-at-koko’ or ‘Mum-look-at-meimei’ (koko = Cantonese for older brother, meimei = Mandarin for younger sister), usually uttered at very high decibels.

After much agonising (on my part) and laughter (on the part of those who purportedly know and love me best), I settled on cheapskatemum. You’ll know why once you’ve read what I wrote under the ‘About Me’ section.