Despite having at least three naming books sitting on bookshelves for years as we waited for our referral we never really got around to selecting a name. Partly this was because the process seemed so unreal at times and partly because we didn’t know how old our daughter would be nor how pronounceable the name given to her by the orphanage would be.
So when were told our daughter’s name, Cen Li Meng, (pronouned Shun Lee Mung) by our social worker, Nancy, we started thinking about names for the first time, or at least I did, although Catherine may have spent a few minutes (translation days) thinking about names prior to that moment. So we tried out a variety of options, some more interesting than others, all of which we rejected. Among the names that we decided didn’t fit were: Millicent which sounded like a really small rap artist, which our daughter may be but we’ll let her decide that herself; An unspellable and unpronounceable Welsh name; and finally the endless variations of girl state names – Virginia, Georgia, Dakota, etc – because geography class is hard enough without the entire 4th grade making jokes at your expense.
So this morning over dim sum, which seemed somewhat appropriate, her new name which is a mix of her existing Chinese name and an easily pronounceable western name came together effortlessly. Or at least part of it did, the whole last name mess is still being negotiated – hyphen or no hyphen. Unfortunately Howie Mandel won’t be giving us a prize depending on our answer to that question. Or course our choice will affect her every time she fills out a standardized test or goes to the doctor.
Anyway, Elizabeth Li is what we’ll call her, with the nickname of Li Li (pronounced Lee-Lee). Now the big question will be what the order of her last names will be and whether or not they’ll be hyphenated.
Hopefully we’ll get pictures of her this week and travel by January or early February. Ciao, Thom
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