You may be cool, but you’ll never be Muslim-guy-named-Merry-Christmas cool.
An Indonesian Muslim man was named Slamet Hari Natal which means Merry Christmas by his parents, because he was born on 25 December 1962.
“Yes, that’s my name,” said Merry Christmas.
The man even showed his ID card and family which has “Slamet Hari Natal” written on it.
“It was supposed to be Selamat Hari Natal, but because we are Javanese, it became Slamet,” he said.
According to Straits Times, a midwife named Akas Kiyo assisted Slamet’s mother during the childbirth at the midwife’s house, in Tumpang, Malang. The midwife who was a Christian suggested “Selamat Hari Natal”, which is the Indonesian Christmas greetings to his parents.
The parents accepted the name but tweaked it a little bit. They named him “Slamet” instead of “Selamat” because “Slamet” is a common Javanese name and can be translated as “safe”.
“They said they didn’t want to think hard for the name, and they had that name ready, so they accepted the suggestion,” Slamet said.
He has one sister named Mujiati. Aiks… not Slamet Hari Jadi?
Despite bearing the name, he had never received any criticism from his neighbours. That’s the spirit, in every sense of that word!
“No, never. We practice tolerance here,” he said.
This is not the first Javanese name that caught people’s attention. In 2013, a Singaporean Javanese guy named Batman bin Suparman has gained something of a cult following after his name went viral on social media.
Sadly, he didn’t live up to his name. BBC reported that the 23-year-old Batman was imprisoned for 33 months by Singapore court for stealing money from a shop and using his brother’s cash card to withdraw money.
Here’s another few unique names that caught our eyes:
So guys, if someone thinks their name is unique, remember these few.