The Tale of Three Yuri's

I find it annoying when people insist on calling my son his second name because his first name, Yuri, is feminine. The first time I heard this, I was like, woah? In what world?

After doing a bit of research, I found out that Yuri is a name of a certain genre Japanese animes. My research didn't went far (got scared of Google images!), but I think it pertains to female-female romance. In short, when I say Yuri, they imagine this:

http://www.animekon.com
The most conservative image I can find

WARNING: If you're with children or if you're in the workplace, please don't search for "Yuri anime" images in Google. I did it and that was a terrible mistake.

On the other hand, I do get to meet a lot of sensible people and understand that Yuri is, indeed, a boy's name. Most of them know that it's a Russian name because of Yuri Gagarin, a popular cosmonaut:

http://www.inyourpocket.com

According to Wikipedia, he's the first person to journey in outer space. Isn't that incredible? He did it back in 1961. Thank goodness a lot of people still know and remember their Science lessons! These people have no problem referring to my son's real name because they do it and remember a particular person who is famous in Russian space exploration history. Nice!

And still, a few people get to be deviant and think of yet another famous Yuri in history, or more accurately, Philippine television history. Don't underestimate these people because my OB-Gyn is among them. To them,  Yuri is simply John Lloyd Cruz:

http://www.pinoyexchange.com

Do you still remember the popular telenovela way back, Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay? I used to love that show because all of the names are Russian: Helena, Andrei (which is my older brother's name, by the way),  Borris, Ivan, Dimitri - that's all I remember. Don't you just love foreign-sounding names?

To be honest, a year ago, John Lloyd's face came to mind when I decided on the name, Yuri. In the future, when my son becomes a teenager and asks me about his name, I will not tell him about Yuri Gagarin. I will tell him that I named him after a telenovela character just to bug him out. Hahaha!

But I won't tell him about yuri animes. Never!

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