Names are more important in Burmese society than they are in the West because in Burmese you often use a person’s name where in English you would say “you” or “yours”. For example, if you wanted to say “Is this your car?” in Burmese, and you were talking to someone called Tin Maung, you’d say “Is this Tin Maung’s car?”.     

  Most Burmese names are made up of two syllables; e.g:     

  Tin Hlá  တင်လှ  Tin Hla 

  Myá Sein  မြစိန်  Mya Sein 

  Thàn Ù  သန်းဦး  Than Oo 

  Some names have three syllables; e.g:     

  Tin Maun Wìn  တင်မောင်ဝင်း  Tin Maung Win 

  K’in Sàn Nweh  ခင်စန်းနွယ်  Khin San Nweh 

  Hlain Wìn S’we  လှိုင်ဝင်းဆွေ  Hlaing Win Swe 

  Some two-syllable names have one of the syllables doubled to make up three in all:     

  Í Í K’in  အိအိခင်  I I Khin 

  Maun Maun Nyún  မောင်မောင်ညွန့်  Maung Maung Nyunt 

  Thìn Thìn È  သင်းသင်အေး  Thin Thin Aye 

  Less commonly, you come across people with names that have four syllables, like:     

  Maun Maun Sò Tín  မောင်မောင်စိုးတင့်  Maung Maung Soe Tint 

  or only one syllable, like:     

  Hlá  လှ  Hla 

  Most of the name elements are words that mean something precious or desirable; e.g:     

  Hlá  လှ  pretty, attractive 

  Thàn  သန်း  a million (for good fortune) 

  Myá  မြ  emerald 

  Sein  စိန်  diamond 

  Wìn  ဝင်း  radiant 

  K’in  ခင်  lovable, loving 

  Maun  မောင်  younger brother 

  Thìn  သင်း  fragrant 

  È  အေး  cool, calm 

  By tradition Burmese names are not family names. You could find a man called Htay Maung, with a wife called Win Swe Myint, and one child called Cho Zin Nwe and another called Than Tut. None of the names has any relationship to the others: they’re all individual.     

  Here and there you may meet a woman who has added her husband’s name to her own to avoid confusion when living or travelling abroad: ambassadors’ wives often find it convenient to do this (hence “Madame Hla Maung” etc). And some parents add elements of their own names to their children’s names. But families that do this are the exception. There are also some Burmese who use Western names like “Kenneth”, “Gladys” and so on, either as nicknames (often originating in schooldays), or to make life easier for Western friends.     

  It is exceptional to use someone’s name on its own: normally people use a prefix in front of it – words like Mr and Mrs and Colonel and Dr. The only people you wouldn’t use prefixes for are small children, or close friends of your own age. If you use an unprefixed name for anyone else it sounds quite offensive. The two commonest prefixes are:     

  Ù  ဦး  U (for men; from the word meaning “uncle”) 

  Daw  ဒေါ်  Daw (for women; from the word for “aunt”) 

  Others you may meet are:     

  Ko  ကို  Ko (for younger men; from “brother”) 

  Má  မ  Ma (for younger women; from “sister”) 

  Maun  မောင်  Maung (for boys; from “younger brother”) 

  S’ǎya  ဆရာ  Teacher (male) 

  S’ǎya-má  ဆရာမ  Teacher (female) 

  Bo-hmù  ဗိုလ်မှူး  Major 

  Bo-jouq  ဗိုလ်ချုပ်  General