I am wondering if I may claim to be the original bearer of this name
Jaslyn. I had this name as early as 1974 and have papers to document such.
I am of Singapore origin and was born with a Chinese background name. The official language in Singapore is English. We have quite a fair bit of English/Western influence and popular names like
Jean,
Albert,
Doris,
Patricia,
Michael,
Helen and
Frankie were adopted by Chinese in the 50s and 60s solely because English names are easier to remember than Chinese names quite uncommon to the western world.
We are more easily remembered if we introduced ourselves as
Doris and
Albert as opposed to
Hui Hwa and
Wen Ta for example.
I remember naming myself from
Sally to
Rowena. Then I decided
Jasmine would suit me better as I was fair and little with quite a 'sweet' disposition! Also I love
Christmas Carols and had been carolling for years, hence another name choice,
Carolyn depicting carols.
Then in 1974, I decided to 'coin' this new hybrid name:
Jaslyn by crossing
Jasmine &
Carolyn (taking Jas from
Jasmine & lyn from
Carolyn) as I couldn't make up my mind if I like
Jasmine or
Carolyn better.
Since 1974 I slowly became known as
Jaslyn and by 1978 I was more known by
Jaslyn than my Chinese birth name. By early 80, I had a Deed Poll done for Change of Name at a lawyer's office and since then I was officially and legally known only as
Jaslyn.
I noticed this name
Jaslyn is more commonly found in my homeland, Singapore, after the 80s and becoming especially more popular in the 90s and also in Australia where I now reside. Most Jaslyns I hear of are Singaporeans and Australians. That points to my believe that I was the first
Jaslyn, at least in Singapore and perhaps in Australia too!
I have been offered many unsolicited comments along this line: how sweet, pretty, lovely.
Jaslyn means: little, fair, sweet and joyful.
I would like to hear comments to this and if anyone have papers documenting this unique name earlier than 1974. If anyone named their daughters
Jaslyn could share where they may have first heard or discovered the name.
So if no one has really found out the origin of this name as spelt
JASLYN, my story could be the origin behind this fairly modern name!
Welcome to the world of Jaslyn_s!
This message was edited 1/13/2009, 2:28 PM