Stop Butchering My Name

An email arrived last week with the opening line "Dear Mr Zainal,". The one before it had said "Dear Mr Abidin,". Neither is correct. Both are understandable. And both are part of the slow, well-meaning process by which Asian names get quietly flattened into a shape that Western systems can handle.

I'd like to make the case for stopping.

What my name actually is

My full name is Irfan bin Zainal Abidin.

The little word in the middle is doing a lot of work. Bin means son of in Arabic (binti for daughter-of), and in Malay tradition every name is built around it:

[Given name] bin/binti [Father's given name]

So my name translates, rather literally, to Irfan, son of Zainal Abidin. The "Zainal Abidin" part isn't a surname. It's my father's name — Arabic in origin, Zayn al-'Abidin, which roughly means ornament of the worshippers.

There is no family name. There is no "middle name". There is me, and there is my father, and the name structure makes that relationship visible.

This is also why Muslim names often feel unfamiliar to Western eyes: they're built from components (honorifics, given names, patronymics) rather than inherited as a fixed bundle. My children will not carry "Zainal Abidin" forward. They'll carry my name — Irfan — as their patronymic.

Why the errors happen

Every Western form I've ever filled out demands a "first name" and a "last name". There's no field for father's name. There's no checkbox for this is a patronymic, not a surname. So I do what most Malays do when filling foreign forms:

• First name: Irfan
• Last name: Zainal Abidin

The system then generates salutations. Mr + last name = Mr Zainal Abidin. Sometimes it sees the space between the two words and picks one half at random. Mr Zainal. Mr Abidin. Both wrong. Both understandable, given the data it was fed.

The more subtle error is when a human assumes the format is right and uses the generated salutation in good faith. That's what most of these emails are. Nobody means harm. The system has already done the harm upstream, quietly, by insisting on a shape my name was never built for.

The quiet conformity

The tempting thing is to adapt. Many Asians do. We hyphenate. We drop the patronymic entirely. We adopt English first names. We swap the order to match what forms expect.

I understand why. When you're trying to get through a customs line, fill out a bank form, or sign an employment contract, you are not in the mood to give a five-minute lesson on Malay naming conventions. You put Zainal Abidin in the last name field, you take the Mr Zainal that comes back, and you move on with your life. That isn't laziness — it's time. The explanation costs more than the error, so you swallow the error and keep moving.

I'll confess to the opposite instinct. I get a small, not-entirely-principled satisfaction when a Westerner works their way politely through Irfan bin Zainal Abidin for the first time. The pause, the careful syllables, the little apologetic smile afterwards — it's a reminder that the language meeting is two-way. I could make it easier by adopting an English first name, as some do. But then the meeting never happens. I'd lose a small piece of myself in exchange for someone else's convenience, and the next Irfan they meet would have slightly less ground to stand on.

So I keep the name as it is. And the cost of flattening, I think, is worth naming.

Our names stop doing what they were built to do. A Malay name tells you whose son I am. A Chinese name puts the family first and the individual second, because that's how the culture orders things. A Sikh name carries the equality of Singh and Kaur. These aren't decorative features — they're compressed cultural logic, passed down in the shape of how we're addressed.

When we flatten the name to fit the form, we lose the logic. And the next generation grows up assuming the Western shape is the default shape, because that's the shape every system they encounter demands.

What I'd prefer

If you're writing to me, here's what works:

• Irfan — always fine.
• Mr Irfan — a little formal but correct.
• Encik Irfan (abbreviated En) — the Malay honorific; appropriate in Malaysian contexts.
• Dr Irfan — when the doctorate finally arrives.

Here's what doesn't:

• Mr Zainal Abidin — this is my father, not me.
• Mr Zainal — half of my father.
• Mr Abidin — the other half.

If the form you're filling out for me has only "first name" and "last name" fields, feel free to put the whole patronymic in the last name box. Just don't then address me with it.

The small insistence

I know this is a small thing. In the taxonomy of cross-cultural friction, being called "Mr Zainal" is not a crisis. It is, at worst, a papercut.

But small insistences matter. Each time an Asian in a Western institution says actually, the convention here is different, the institution learns — slowly, imperfectly — that its default is not universal. That's how forms eventually grow an "additional name" field. That's how HR systems eventually learn to display names in local order. That's how the person after you gets called by their actual name.

So I'll keep insisting, politely. I'll answer to Irfan.

Just Irfan.