Studying Fanny

When I moved to Hong Kong one of the first things I did was shift my name from the diminutive Randy to my full name, Randall.

The reason was obvious: as a former crown colony there was every chance the resident Brits and Aussies would snicker every time I introduced myself. I imagined it thus:

"Hi, I'm Randy."

"Are you, now?"

Or: "How nice for you."

Or: "I'm married."

Clearly this would not do, and was why I was initially curious that so many Hong Kong women called themselves Fanny.

You see, in North America Fanny can be either a relaxed diminutive of Frances (also spelled Fannie, much to the chagrin of many former homeowners) or a slang term for buttocks. If the latter it's quite innocent; it's not uncommon to hear an American woman who's been on her feet all day talk about how good it would feel to sit on her fanny for a while.

In England and possibly Australia, however, such a statement might elicit both a puzzled and likely embarrassed silence. Unlike Canadians and Americans, our friends from the United Kingdom use fanny as vulgar slang for the female genitals, hence the reason the British use the expression "putting bums in seats" when they talk of filling a stadium (to an American, of course, that term means filling the stadium with hobos). It's also why some Britons don't quite get what you mean when you talk about wearing a fanny pack.

Which leads back to why Fanny seemed such a questionable selection in Hong Kong. You'd think that as a former British stronghold someone would have pointed out that perhaps better choices existed, because believe it or not, it gets worse. Consider what happens when Fanny is combined with certain Chinese family names, such as Fan, Pang, or the regrettable Chow. Come to think of it, they don't work well given the American slang either.

Perhaps when used as a name people overlook the alternative meanings; after all, Fanny has been used as a name in England far longer than the more recent not-to-be-used-in-polite-company definition. And the most likely reason for the name in Hong Kong is simply that it's a natural Anglicised version of a Chinese name such as Fan-mei or Fan-lei.

Regardless, I'm still not changing my name back to Randy.

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