In case you missed the explanation of our daughters first name, feel free to find out more here.
On to her middle name!
I’ve been following along with lots of other China moms adoption stories, and it has been such huge help!!! Especially as we learned her Chinese name and had to figure out what it meant and what to do with it.
Some people who adopt older kids keep their names. Most who adopt a little younger, keep their Chinese name as one of their middle names. Some throw it out altogether (and some kids don’t want any association with their past, so it works).
We really wanted to keep her Chinese name. That was the plan all along. Especially if her parents gave it to her, that was non-negotiable. But they didn’t. The orphanage named her. She has three names; the first one represents the orphanage she’s at, the second one represents the year she was brought into the orphanage, and the third one is unique to her.
Her current given name that is unique to her, is Cui. Pronounce Choy. Like bok choy. And after digging around some more, we learned that it represents green as referring to vegetables. Mmmm…no. As much as I like vegetables and food, I’m not naming my kid after it. The Chinese are big on name meanings so we asked for more information on the meaning behind her name, and while we waited we did some more research.
During this time I kept coming across verses dealing talking about light, specifically in reference to Jesus. Verses like:
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:4-5
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5 (emphasis mine)
That last one. What a beautiful picture for adoption. There has been a lot of darkness in her life, but our prayer is that she would know the giver of true life, and that would give her so much light and hope, and that the darkness she has known and may continue to wrestle with would NOT overcome. It’s also our prayer that she would have a light that shines to others. That just as darkness has not won in her life, her story could help shine a light for others.
I love the idea of our daughter having this beautiful light in her that just shone forth.
While researching words that might mean beautiful light, we came across the word Mei (may) which means beautiful, and we both loved!!! So we knew somehow that would need to find it’s way into the mix. But most of the Chinese words for light weren’t exactly working.
We heard back from the orphanage that they named her a word that meant green because green represents the color of hope in China, and they want her “to have hope in any situation”. LOVE! So we need to include green, but not green in reference to vegetables. I looked up what the word for just green in Chinese is, and it was perfect: Lu (pronounced Lou). Which also *just so happens* to be light in latin. Our daughter was going to be named beautiful light, which also happens to have a shade of green in it, representing hope 🙂
But we weren’t done.
Like most other China mamas, we were going to give our daughter a middle name representing their China name, and one an English name. Mei Lu was her Chinese middle name and we needed an English one.
Our daughters first name is after my mother in law. That was so important to us. But there are so many other incredible women we have lost in our lives we would love to honor. However even with squeezing an extra name in, we still don’t have room to give credit to all the great women in our lives that deserve it. That said, we were able to come up with one name that represented two important ones.
My middle name is Susanne. Both my mom and my grandma are named Susan, so Susanne was in their honor. My grandma was very influential in my life, so taking part of that name was a way to honor her memory.
But there was someone else we wanted to honor who was quite important in our adoption story.
When we first really started looking into the idea of international adoption it was super scary. Like overwhelmingly terrifying. I kind of joke with people I almost researched myself out of it, but it’s very true. We knew too much.
And just like God does, when things seem like way too much, He helped it seem less scary.
There was this girl that came into our lives. Breathtakingly beautiful inside and out and she simply radiated joy. She also seemed to have an unparalleled gift with kids, so after hanging out with her a lot at church, I thought I would see if she babysat. Conveniently, she did! My kids immediately fell in love with her. As did I! Her and I would hang out and chat long after she could have left. Living away from all our family and having a husband that travels, we need sitters pretty frequently, so she was a regular visitor in our home. Any time I announced her impending arrival, my kids squealed with delight!
I had an idea she was adopted (she was Indian), but hadn’t come outright and talked about it. I mentioned we were throwing around the idea during on of her late night talks, and she proceeded to share her story. She was a special needs adoption, with a blood disorder. The family that was supposed to adopt her and funded the adoption no longer wanted her after seeing how sickly she was. So she miraculously ended up in her parents arms who were willing to risk opening her hearts to this girl that might not live, just so she would know the love of a family for however long her life was. She shared with us about her special need, how it affected her life, but how much life she was able to live completely normal.
She made adopting a special need kiddo seem so much less scary and so much more accessible. She helped me get over this fear without a tangible face and realize fear was keeping us from a very tangible child. She gave us hope.
We loved our Miss Katie, and were absolutely heartbroken when she tragically passed away after a bicycle accident. Anyone who knew her missed the light she brought to their lives.
She’s still a normal name and memory around our house. My daughter still loves to recount her favorite games she played with Miss Katie. As we started thinking about names, I couldn’t shake the idea of how pivotal she was to us in this adoption process. I felt like it was important to honor her memory in our daughters life, and to give our daughter a role model, even if she’ll never meet her this side of heaven.
Miss Katie’s full name was Katherine Anne, both names being from Anne of Green Gables. We have a lot of K’s being thrown around here (Kate, Katie, Kelly, Katherine), so I zeroed in on Anne. I love me some Anne girl, so that seemed even more of a perfect fit. To quote her mom on the reason she chose the name for her: “Anne was for Anne of Green Gables. Just like Anne in the book Katie had so many funny, little ways that brought such joy to our family. The way she would army crawl to a baby doll and rock while shushing it. The way she loved spicy food…even as a toddler. The way she would ask “how many sleeps” until an event or something. Her crazy talent with puzzles even at a very young age. So many funny little things.”
We can’t wait to learn all the funny little ways our own Anne girl will bring joy into our lives. We also cannot wait to share the greatness of the women she is named after with her. Anne also just happens to mean “grace”.
Naomi Mei Lu Anne.
lovely/congenial, beautiful light (and hope), grace
It’s a mouthful with a whole lot of meaning, but we pray that the intentionality we have had in naming her will manifest itself within her heart.
We’ve seen it with our other kids. The verses we picked for them and prayed over them, the meaning of their names…it’s bled into the very fiber of their being, and we so hope it will be the same with our daughter who needs someone to have hope and love and dreams for her.