I've accompanied my wife to an International Symposium in Kuala Lumpur recently. In the opening speech, the host (a Norwegian) adressed my wife by her father's name, Mrs. Abdullah. This cause a little commotion as the host were using feminine honorific to address a male name. What many people all over the world doesn't know is, in Malaysian malay society, there's no family names. Children are named before their father's name not before their family's name. So please be advice.
What you should know about Malaysian names
- Thread starter Awang se
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Example : Latifah binti Osman. Usually they do away with binti and just write Latifah Osman.
Latifah - her name; binti - mean's Daughter of, for Male it's bin mean's Son of; Osman - Her father's name;. This also true for ethnic Tamil Indians and most non-Malay natives (Orang Asli, Iban, Kadazan..) but not for ethnic Chinese and ethnic Punjabi Indians or some Christian Non-Malay natives.
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There are key exceptions, like the Marican clan for example, and Pakistani Malaysians, many of whom have a family name.