About Sean

Sean is the Irish form of John, which is the English form of Johannes, which is the Latin form of Loannes, which is the Greek name derived from the Hebrew name Yochanan. Yochanan means Yahweh in Hebrew, the name of a Hebrew God. Not a bad name, I guess.

About Wong (王)

Wong in Chinese means a King or Monarch.

Click here to learn more about the origin of Wong (王).

About 榛 (Tsun)

My first name 榛 (pronounced "Tsun" in Cantonese and "Zhen" in Putonghua) means hazel, a deciduous shrub or small tree with yellowish brown flowers. Its fruit, 榛子 (hazelnut), has a hard shell and edible kernel.

Why Sean?

Historically, the birth of a great man usually accompanies with some mythical stories. For example, the legend says that on the day when Yue Fei (岳飛), a famous general in Song dynasty (Confucian year 1511-1678 or 960-1127 AD) was born, a giant bird hovered over his parent's house. To commemorate the incident, his named him the hovering bird (鵬舉), to commemorate the incident. Inspired by this and many other legends, my parents decided to make up a similar story for me ...

A day around Christmas, Confucian year 2553 (i.e. 2001 AD), my mom bought a box of hazelnut ice-cream, and finished half of it. Two months later, she found herself pregnant. After giving my mom 37 weeks of back-breaking sleepless nights, I kicked open the "door" that had kept me in for nearly 9 months and woke my mom up with a gush of water. It was half past four on the Sunday morning of August 18, 2553 (2002 AD). My father rushed out of the house to start the car. The sun hadn't risen yet and the house was enveloped in a mist. In the haze of greyish blue, he saw a hazel tree (he was convinced that they were hazel trees, even though he had only saw the picture of a hazel tree once on Internet!!) standing at the front door blocking his way out. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief and took a look again (he was convinced that it was a hazel tree, even though he had only seen the picture of a hazel tree once on the Internet!!). This time, the tree disappeared. He knew that it was a sign and following Chinese tradition (name the child after the first thing you see in the morning), he named me 榛 (hazel).

For the English name, before they had made up their mind, my parents thought of the name of John as the pronunciation of 榛 (Tsun) is quite close to John in English. But after a quick search on Internet, my father found that the domain name JohnWong.COM had already been taken. My mother thought for a while and suggested, "Why not Sean?" So my father clicked the mouse and built this website for me.