Turkish couple who run an artsy furniture store a block from my apartment: for some reason I had never been in the little bedford ave mini-mall. What a mini-mall though: a hipster coffee shop, hipster haircutters place, a tibetan clothing store, an indie music shop, a computer gear store called "mikey's hook-up" and this nice little furniture store.
The girl and I reminisced about Inspector Gadget. There was a chair that looked like the one the evil boss of M.A.D. would sit in at the end, growling "I'll get you next time gadget!" What was the cat's name? We wikipedia-ed it. Apparently just "mad cat." Guess they used up all their creativity deciding what body part Gadget would scream orders at next. She told me the Turkish equivalent to "Go go Gadget arm!" was something like "Come on! Come on! Gadget arm!" I got an impromptu Turkish lesson.
We then started talking about Turkish names. To my surprise I discovered that their names were all very literal. I started telling them the names of all the Turks I have known. I have known a guy named "war." Who names their kid "war," in any language? The couple's names roughly meant "frontier" (the guy) and "sweet smell" (the girl). The guy tells me Turkish girl names are always like this. Often they are the names of flowers.
This very literal, non-abstract naming system is totally foreign to me. Is it similar to Native American naming systems I wonder? ("Bird-That-Craps-When-I-Kick-It.") I left the store much more interested in Turkish culture.
Posted by Alan at October 15, 2006 11:14 PM