Wat’s in a name?

I remember one time, almost twenty years ago, that one of my staff told me that a wat (Buddhist pagoda) was asking us to put our DDP name on the wall. I had no idea what that meant and couldn’t get a good explanation so I said we’d pass. Later I found that it is the custom for the monks in wats to solicit donations from people, and those who contribute get their names carved in stone in recognition of their generosity. The brown marble plaques above immortalize some such donors on a Phnom Penh wat wall.