My name is Luke. I don't know much about my name, and I've been able to research little of it my whole life, but I'll tell you what I know. I was born in 1981 and around that time the "Star Wars" movies had been coming out. As we all probably know, Luke Skywalker is the main character in the trilogy. One day my mother asked my father if "Luke" meant anything in Thai, which is my father's languege. It did have a meaning. It meant "baby", and that's what my father told my mother. There you go, the double meaning of my first name.
My last name isn't so easy. In fact, every place I've been to reearch it had come up with nothing. I know in Thai "glup" means to pray or show respect, and "ngam" means water. So my last name could be interpreted in english as "holy water". When my Uncle came here, he came at a different time than my father, and at immigration he took a different spelling of the last name. That different spelling is Klupngam, which my little cousins have today. Thats about all I've been able to find out on my last name.
I've hated my last name my whole life, and for most of the begining of my life I've hated my first name as well. Luke rhymes with a lot of bad things for schoolboys to taunt with. Not that I would take the taunting. I was big for my age back then.
So my mom is white (swedish and german) and my dad is Thai (central Thailand). There are no taboos around my name in Thai culture or in European culture. There is a joke in Thai that my family likes to remind me of though. In Thai "Luke" can mean many things, depending on pronunciation. It can mean ball, small, or if you really really mess up pronunciation, it can mean something bad that I won't say here. So they joke around with me with all those and used to laugh back when I couldn't pronounce my own name in Thai. Luke in the European sense is actually taken from the Bible, one of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I have thought very much about changed my name. My last name is just so gruesome to me, nobody can pronounce it or spell it. I even went so far as to find out how much it would cost. Currently it costs $248 for an official name change to anything you want from the Superior Court in Chatsworth. I would change only my last name, to Sangurai, my Thai grandmother's maiden name. She was a very good person. So in taking her last name I would keep my Thai tradition in tact, keep my very western first name, and all is well. I will probably change it early next year.