The History of SHI
I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me to share with you where my name “SHI” comes from since it’s near + dear to my heart + represents so much more than so many other titles or hats tend to.
To start, I’ll have to take you back to my first ever trip to Japan (a place that I have been obsessed with longer than my memory can even recall). I ended up there in college serving the local community at a summer camp outside of Tokyo.
I think the first thing every single person wants to do when dipping their toe into a new language is to have their name translated and I’m really no exception to that rule. So one of our Japanese-American friends went through all of our names, breaking down the syllables and correlating them to Kanji characters.
Finally, we got to my name and the first couple of syllables were easy, but that last syllable, “SHI” (there is no sound in Japanese that can be pronounced as my name is in English) only had 2 options for Kanji: poem or death.
You can call me emo if you want to, but I personally found death to be a bit more appealing than poem as I had already experienced far too much of it in my life at that point + had a bit of a connection to it.
Additionally, the sound “SHI” is a rarely-used word for the number 4 which just so happens to be my lucky number and the Japanese equivalent of the American number “13” – who doesn’t love a little superstition?
So it may be a little morbid, but the name SHI seemed to have too many coincidental overlaps to some of those things that define me anyway.
Do you have a nickname that you go by + where does it come from?
Also, stay tuned for those exclusive surprises by joining my little community of subscribers using the banner here on the page.
Thanks again for stopping by + remember to check in to see new notes, pieces of art + other fun goodies as they come out!
