Ren

A buddy of mine, Gary and his wife Hiromi, just had their first child. Ren was born March 28, at 9:28PM weighing in at 6 lbs 15 oz and measuring 20 inches long. Gary was a big fan of the Ren & Stimpy Show. So obviously, I assumed that their child was named after Ren Hoek, the chihuahua.


Gary clarified the name this way, "We wanted a name that was easy [to say] and not too foreign sounding in English, but that used only Japanese phonetics so that it would be easily pronounced by Hiromi's family. That narrowed the list of choices down quite a bit. We didn't want a typical Japanese name like "Takamasa" or "Katsunori" or "Tomoyuki". We wanted something that fit without sounding too foreign in both languages. We hit on Ren and liked the sound of it both from the English and Japanese perspective....In Japan, it isn't really common, but seems to be growing in use. Longer forms using the same base are definitely common like "Rentaro". The Kanji for Ren is that of a lotus flower."

Congratulations! And think about Stimpy for your next child.