What's in a name?

Well, I'm holed up in bed with a bad back so might as well make the best of it by blogging hey?

Being stuck in the house is a bad day for me. It never seems to end. And being that this isn't my house, there's not countless little jobs to keep me busy. I sent all my scrapbooking home to Australia. I tend to get bored quickly. So this morning our friends came to visit us. A cute little newly married Chinese couple -- he works for World Vision as a project journalist and she teaches English at an English immersion school. We chatted about all sorts of things: how they met, photo documentation, how I could come read English stories to the kids at the school on Saturdays, and why does Jason have a Chinese name and I don't? They sort of got hung up on that last one and the wife took it upon herself to come up with a good name for me. I barely know these guys and I'm thinking to myself "what if I don't like it?!" cause so far I haven't liked any Chinese names people have suggested for me and the literal Chinese version of Rachel is way to hard for me to say.

Now let me preface this by saying that Chinese names are all about the meaning. They're very literal and if you are a foreigner choosing a Chinese name, people will tell you to your face what they really think about it. So its really important to pick a name with good meaning, good poetry and the correct number of syllables (no less than two, no more than three). If you are a foreigner, you can change your name any time you like obviously but really, you want to find a good solid name you can stick to for the rest of your life.

An obvious choice for Jason's name is Gāo which means 'tall standing' or 'high'. One of our Chinese friends suggested the name "Gāo Jiàn" (this is how it looks in Chinese: 高见) with the literal translation being "Tall vision". As soon as he tells people they can call him this, they are all amazed and tell him that he is a very wise man because the poetical translation is 'someone who can step back and see over problems' or something along those lines. Technically, he still doesn't have a last name but this is about his third try at a first name and seems to be going well.

Me, well, I guess I'm harder for people to come up with something for. I'm usually met with answers like, "let me think about it". So I was a little surprise today when my friend got excited about helping me find a name. And worried I'll admit -- I hate to hurt people's feelings if I don't like the suggestion. But she took my English name's meaning (lamb) and my birthday and favourite season (which happens to be Autumn) and used that to come up with this: Yáng Lì qīu 杨丽秋. So "Yáng" would be my last name, which means "lamb" and "Lì qīu" (which almost

sounds like how most Chinese people try to pronounce my English name anyway) means

"Beautiful Autumn". So it doesn't have the stately sounding meaning that Jason's does but that's

ok because the men tend to have names you must grow into and the women have the more

poetic, beautiful sounding names. So I've had a day to think about it and I think Yáng Lì qīu is

growing on me and I might just keep this one. I'll throw it out there for the people to criticize (I tell

you, one must grow a thick skin here) and see if I still feel the same way in about a weeks time!

高见 - Gāo Jiàn

(Jason's Chinese name. Meaning: Tall Vision)

杨丽秋 - Yáng Lì qīu

(Rachel's Chinese name. Meaning: Yáng (family name) = lamb

Lì qīu = Beautiful Autumn)

Rachel, 31/08/09