Egged on by a tinge of pride and the taint of vanity, but mostly just seeking another signature to brand the world with, I wanted a family coat of arms. A quick look at the Internet Machine came up with a “Dorsey crest” but it won’t do at all.

For one thing, you’re paying some company money for a piece of artwork — on a scroll, a plaque, stationery, a necktie and/or a keyring — that is probably about as authentic as the Internet’s retail department. Maybe it’s got some actual historic basis, maybe it doesn’t.

For another thing, the one I saw offered at two websites (which might well both belong to the same company) is full of crosses and a five-petal flower I don’t recognise. The bull is fine for my wife Ae, a Taurus, but that could be amalgamated in other ways in a different design.

I’m not even impressed with the knight’s helmet (though everybody’s crests on these websites seem to have one). Christianity and war certainly go hand in hand, but that’s why I’m not thrilled about having either one in my house.

I don’t mind the motto too much — “Un dieu, un roi” — “one god, one king”. But I figured I could do better than that too.

The Catholic parish of Orlando, Florida, has a website that shows off the coat of arms of its bishop, Norbert Dorsey, who claims Irish ancestry but for some reason changed his name from Leonard James Dorsey. (With Orlando, we have that Dorseyland-Disneyland link again!) The bishop’s personal crest has been combined with the diocese’s own, his on the right. Both are piled with religious symbolism.

Bishop Dorsey chose the motto from St Paul of the Cross — “Love is ingenious” (referring to the love of God, of course). Cool saying, but there’s nothing for me here either.

So I got busy and made my own. I’ve probably broken most of the rules of heraldry, but I don’t care about armorial bearings, fields, charges and devices that much.

Leave that to my ancestors, the Darcys, whose crest had a barely legible motto. I think it translates as “Family in crisis”, but I can’t make it out.

In the new Dorsey coat of arms, the war helmet has been replaced by the Lord Buddha, there’s a lion for me because I’m a Leo and the bull for my wife, at the bottom a sun for our kids Beam, who’s a sunbeam, and Ying, whose actual name, Rungarun, means “dawn”. There’s a Lancashire rose for the English county of my birth and a maple leaf for the country where I was raised, and in between them a seahorse to symbolise Phuket, the Thai island where Ae was born.

The chevron, so I read, represents the roof of a house, signifying protection. Azure, by which heraldry people refer to any shade of blue, is for strength and loyalty, and argent (silver or white) means sincerity and peace.

Coming up with a motto was an interesting exercise in self-evaluation. I came across some great Latin proverbs and was sorely tempted to go with something funny, like Cavete a canibus (Beware of the dogs), Cedo nulli (I yield to no one) or perhaps, since I’m often kidded that you could land a plane on the space above my eyes, Frons hominem præfert (The forehead reveals the man).

Then there were the more inspirational sayings: Interiora vide (Look within), Quod in te est, prome (Bring forth what is in you), from Cicero Liberae sunt nostrae cogitationes (Our thoughts are free) or from St Augustine, In aere aedificare (Build [castles] in the air).

I liked Aude aliquid dignum too — Dare something worthy. But I settled on Est deus in nobis from Ovidius. It means “There is a god inside us”.

Now, of course, I can start stamping the thing all over the place.