WHEN a video clip of three women – who weaponised their coughs as part of an unsanitary assault on an Uber driver – splattered all over the Internet recently, nauseated viewers vomited their outrage.
But as details of the three San Francisco Sickos emerged, netizens in THIS country began to feel truly sick to their stomachs, as one of the wayward women bears the unlikely name of "Malaysia King". Minds blown…
Wait, what? How could this soon-to-be prison staycationer and our country's immaculate moniker have ever crossed paths? What strange circumstances led to this non-White Karen – whose conduct was most UN-Malaysian – being christened our nation's appellation? And what Western mother, not requiring psychiatric care, saddles her kid with the overly-exotic "Malaysia", which doesn't exactly roll off the American tongue. (What's her middle name, "Equatorial Guinea"?)
Here's the tea: there are hordes of Malaysias rampaging around in the United States, possibly bludgeoning Uber drivers from New York City to Los Angeles. They rose to prominence – after years of keeping on the down low – in 2011, when the name "Malaysia" sprang onto the Social Security Administration's list of 1,000 most popular baby girl names. The handle started developing a swagger in 2012 when its popularity nearly doubled. But in 2013, it "trespassed" into top 500 territory – and became the most popular country-based name in America. You can't HANDLE my handle!
In 2019 – the latest year for which statistics are available – "Malaysia" was still on the top baby names chart, having superglued itself to the 559th spot. Sneaking up the list, by the way, is "Malaya", the 671st most popular kids' moniker in the US. It seems as if our country's humble birth name, which was shed for the glamorous stage sobriquet "Malaysia" after our post-Independence international debut, has been ferreted-out by the tabloids. And it's naming names!
In a curious twist to the "Call Me By Your Name" fad, "Malaysia" has currency almost exclusively among the African American community. Yes, only US Blacks have our backs (the Whites are sticking firmly to Dakota, Mackenzie, Harper, Hunter and Brooklyn in a polite contest for the most pretentious baby names in all of Creation). So why has "Malaysia" been welcomed to the 'hood?
Enter Malaysia Pargo, ex-wife of NBA luminary Jannero Pargo and star of the monumentally popular US reality TV show "Basketball Wives LA". While Pargo, who is a knockout African American, wasn't catapulted to Pope Francis' or Brazil's Miss Bumbum's level of superstardom, she became a household name in the US – and BLACK households REALLY dug her name. "Basketball Wives LA" premiered in – you guessed it – 2011, which accounts for the bump in the name "Malaysia" among Black women with baby bumps that year. The rest is her-story.
Also a factor is the Black community's relatively recent jettisoning of the dominant Anglo and Christian-centric baby naming convention, and warm embrace of West African, Arabic and French appellations. Eclipsing these is a parade of sensationally creative, entirely novel innovations; as well as an electric range of rejigged, re-imagined and repurposed traditional Western names. So say "Hello" to Shaniqua, JaMarcus, Deiondre, Quanelle and Laquanna. They're sitting over there at the cool kids' table with Malaysia.
So what do Malaysias way over there in the US think of their namesake? Ah, that's the part that b*tthurts me - most of them wouldn't know Malaysia from Adam (hah!). As per most Westerners, few have heard of our small, low-profile, developing nation on the other side of the galaxy. An online acquaintance of mine, who works as a male nurse at a US hospital, once related to me a bizarre conversation he had with a woman who was securing a doctor's appointment for her daughter, fabulously named "Malaysia." As she began to spell out her kid's unique name, my friend, trying to expedite the process, said: "Oh, Malaysia. Like the country?" To which the woman replied: "What are you talking about? What country? Are you making fun of my kid's name?" True story.
Malaysians to Malaysias: Are we a joke to you? [Insert crying meme].