*The second part of this article will be published next week.

At this year’s Oscars, John Travolta introduced singer Idina Menzel as “Adele Dazeem”, flubbing the singer’s name so badly that some critics suggested it affected Idina’s subsequent jittery performance of the Oscar-winning song “Let it Go” from the animated movie ‘Frozen’.

Travolta’s flub went viral, even inspiring a name-generator that promised to ‘travoltify’ your name!

We name because we want to make sense of the world around us. As babies, our parents would point at objects and teach us the names of each object. We name the unknown, and everything new that we discover is given a name.

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One of my favourite storybooks is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

The themes of love and sacrifice are intrinsically intertwined in our lives and it helps to always reflect on where we are, where we've come from and where we are going.

This column is my 'journal' of sorts, to explore the intersection between the roots and wings of this life.

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A name defines us, characterises us, and perhaps sometimes, gives us shoes that are still a little too big to fill.

It gives a stranger a bite-sized clue as to our culture, our heritage, our character and our family background.

My given name

My name "Corrinne" has Greek roots. In Greek, the name means "maiden". Ok... not much meaning in that. It’s almost like how my daughter Claire calls her stuffed toy dog, "Doggy".

On a recent trip to France, it was so refreshing to hear a lady in the pattiserie shop say “Corrinne” with a French accent (“CoRR-EEen”) and she told me that the name is French, or at least, popular in France.

My dad used to call me "Corrina" as an affectionate alternative to my name and used to joke that he bought his Toyota Carina back in the 80’s because it had a ring like "Corrina" to it.

People that I meet here in the US are often fascinated with my name and some have even ventured to enquire if I chose some English name for the purpose of being here in the States. After all, they are right to assume that most people of Asian ethnicity have first names that are drawn from and linked to their ethnic background.

So history played a part in my naming as well. For if my parents did not speak English (as a result of Singapore’s colonial past) or listen to English pop music (the result of Singapore’s cosmopolitan character), my mum would never have heard the song Corrina, Corrina by Ray Peterson (that was popular in the 60’s and charted at #9 on the Billboard charts) being played at the hospital (Kandang Kerbau) where I was born and named me after that song.

I never thought much before, about how my name came about through my mother’s love for a song. But how apt it seems to me now that I’m a singer-songwriter... how apt that my own name somehow found its roots through song.

My family name

My family name "Foo", gives a clue as to my heritage. Most Singaporean Chinese with the family name "Foo" came from Hainan island and most are Hainanese. My father’s father left Hainan island on a ship when he was just 17 and never went back to his homeland.

Although the women in the Foo family do not have some form of name that ties them generationally, to each other, every male child in the Foo clan has a generation name through which they can trace their roots.

This is done by consulting following a 40-word generation poem where no single character is duplicated. Each successive word is hence the generation name for each successive generation. So, my father is named "Foo Jiong Fatt" and all his brothers and the males of his generation have the generation name "Jiong". My brother has the generation name "Chuan" and he shares that with his male cousins.

Fascinating. I love the fact that if two men, both with the family name "Foo" met each other by chance, they could figure out how they relate to each other, generationally-speaking, just by introducing themselves by name.

My Chinese name

In many cultures, a lot of importance is given to choosing precisely the right name that will speak of qualities that the parents hope the child will grow into. In the Chinese culture, the males are often named after qualities like courage, valour, magnanimity and honour whereas the females are often named by qualities like beauty, gentleness, kindness.

I disliked my Chinese name when I was growing up. English was my first language. We spoke only English at home and so no one had really addressed me by my Chinese name at all. The sound of my Chinese name was so foreign to me that even when I was seven years old, I would cringe whenever my Chinese language teacher called my name.

“符美雲!”(or in Pinyin, Foo Mei Yun) she would thunder, calling me up to spell a word on the blackboard.

Yet, I would grow to like the name. I have to say, that the older I get, the more I appreciate the poetic beauty of my given Chinese name.

My name literally translates to "Beautiful Cloud". I've found the cloud quality of my name to be quite apt. After all, I do wander back and forth quite often from Los Angeles to Singapore, hoping to refresh people’s spirits through the gift of song and music.

And the more I look at the clouds in the sky, the more I am in awe of how they speak to me, in their shapes, their forms, their absence, their greys or whites... how they colour my mood, my sentiments, my writings.

It has an almost Native American quality to it, the way it alludes to a character of nature. It’s fascinating too, that some native American tribes name their children only after a certain age so that their elders can perceive the character qualities that emerge after the passage of time.

My name reflects my wandering spirit. I suppose I too, had to grow into my name.

My musician name

Then there is my musician name. Corrinne May.

In the States, my name, on official documents reads this way: "Corrinne May Ying Foo", where the family name is right at the end.

Very different from the "Corrinne Foo May Ying" on my Singapore IC where the family name comes right after my first name.

"Corrinne May", I thought to myself, when I first started performing out in Los Angeles.

I liked the sound of it. It was less aurally percussive than "Corrinne Foo" and with its smoother sound, it seemed to match the style of my music a little better. So, I decided to go with "Corrinne May" and the name took a little growing into too.

I must admit it was strange initially to hear my name announced as "Corrinne May" during my performances around Los Angeles, but as I grew in my musicianship, the name grew along with me too. I now feel a responsibility to the name, for to my fans, the name reflects a certain style of music that they have come to know and recognise.

Every once in a while, I get someone coming up to me to say "Hi, are you Corrinne May?" and this is usually followed up by the person mentioning an encouraging comment about how my music has made a difference to them.

I will forever be grateful for the gift of music and the gift of fans who have helped me to know that Corrinne May’s music has made a difference. Thank you.

Now, if only John Travolta would introduce me as 'Cole Morphay'! (i.e. Corrinne May, travoltified!)

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