Meet Masegesege Abalrini (Ou Chin)
From now on, please call me Masegesege Abalrini.
On February 2, Wei Chuan Dragons’ first baseman 歐晉 (Ou Chin) announced that he had changed his name back to his Taiwanese indigenous name, “Masegesege Abalrini”.
According to the Rukai tribe’s naming system, their name is displayed in the format of “person’s name” plus “physical house name”. Therefore, the name Masegesege Abalrini would mean “Masegesege” from the “Abalrini” house.
“Last year, the Uni-Lions’ Sung Wen-Hua (Amis tribe) brought up the idea of changing our names back to our tribe names, so I changed it during the offseason,” said Ou Chin, who is now known as Masegesege Abalrini.
Here a video of 12-year-old 歐晉 (Ou Chin) representing Taiwan in the 2009 Little League World Series. pic.twitter.com/NDgU7O3Kgz
— CPBL STATS – ♥️ #95, Mina (@GOCPBL) December 13, 2019
Masegesege Abalrini, the 26-year-old first baseman, was the Wei Chuan Dragons’ 30th-round pick in the 2019 CPBL draft.
Masegesege Abalrini only had a handful of opportunities with the Dragons’ first team. In 2021, he was briefly called up and slashed .250/.250/.313 over 16 plate appearances.
Last year in the CPBL minor league, Masegesege Abalrini hit .264 /.324/.344 across 45 games and 142 plate appearances.
“He has shown improvement in both hitting and fielding, but there is still room for growth. He is likely to get some first-team opportunities this year,” said the Dragons manager.
Although close to 50% of the players in the CPBL are Taiwanese indigenous peoples, only a handful of them uses their tribe names as their official names.
As of today, there are four active CPBL players have gone through the official route via the Ministry of the Interior to change their names.
- Giljegiljaw Kungkuan
- Namoh Iyang
- Pacidal Nekil
- Masegesege Abalrini
2022 Playoff Series G3
Wei Chuan Dragons' Giljegiljaw Kungkuan belts a game-tying 2-run shot in the 7th inning. #CPBL pic.twitter.com/RyVbIDXDwN
— CPBL STATS – ♥️ #95, Mina (@GOCPBL) November 1, 2022
There are a few more active players who are doing the half-and-half method and have yet to go through the official route. At the moment, they are using both their indigenous names and their Han names at the same time.
- 林智勝 (Lin Chih-Sheng) / Ngayaw Ake
- 陳鏞基 Chen Yung-Chi / Mayaw Ciru
- 王勝偉 (Wang Sheng-Wei) / Haro Ngayaw
- 曾陶鎔 (Tseng Tao-Jung) / Pisaw Kunyu
New #CPBL Record: HR #299!
Wei Chuan Dragons 林智勝 (Lin Chih-Sheng) belts a game-tying opposite field 2-run shot for his 299th career home run!
Lin is now 1 home run away from the 300-HR milestone. 👀 pic.twitter.com/Hq7eXJVH0h
— CPBL STATS – ♥️ #95, Mina (@GOCPBL) September 24, 2022