What's her name

I’ve been hearing one particular question a lot lately, often accompanied by a bewildered expression.

“So...what’s your daughter’s name again?”

Sometimes I answer with one name, occasionally with another, and once in a while with both. I imagine that my “deer in headlights” expression whenever I get that question might be adding to the confusion.

Well, we first knew our daughter as Rylee, her agency given pseudonym. Her Chinese orphanage name was entirely different. She’d had at least one unknown name from before the orphanage. We announced her as Lia when she became a US citizen. We usually refer to her as Jun Lan (which we pronounce June Lahn). Elijah pronounces it Joo-wahn. Our boys also call her Mei Mei (little sister). And a hospital technician recently gave her the nickname LiLi (which means beautiful in Chinese) and it just might stick.

I guess one could call that confusing. :)

Despite how it may appear, we did put some serious thought into our daughter's name. After so many, we wanted to make sure that her final one would be a good fit. And we came to a decision fairly early in our process to adopt her. So, we knew what her name was to be.

And yet, we didn’t.

Our first, and easiest, decision was to drop her Chinese last name. Many children from her orphanage have been given the same one, and it reflects her orphanage’s name and city. Up until recently, some orphans were given last names that mean “foster care” or “ward of the state”. Recently China began to require that orphanages name children from a list of the most common Chinese last names, rather than ones that reflect their orphaned status or specific orphanage. The reason is that orphans can be discriminated against due to being easily identifiable. Even those talented enough to receive scholarships or enter the work force could be turned away simply due to a name. Luck is a big deal in Chinese culture. And, sadly, orphans are said to bring just the opposite.

Our daughter’s other Chinese names became quite special to us. Jun means royal or kingdom. And Lan means orchid. A truly beautiful name, and one that reflects her culture and her past. We loved it, and knew without a doubt that we would keep it.

We also wanted to give her a name to reflect our family. Our boys all have Hebrew names that represent an admirable biblical story or character. We wanted our daughter to share this naming tradition. We were both drawn to the name Leah. Our only hesitation was that the meaning of Leah is simply "sorrow". Biblical Leah certainly had a story of sorrow (and obviously our daughter does too). But her story didn’t end in sorrow and, we hope, neither will our daughter's. She ends up finding her joy in God and then He blesses her greatly. Leah’s official meaning seemed to miss all of that goodness. So we decided to spell it Lia instead, which means "bringer of good news".

Soon after, we realized that Lia has its own Chinese character and meaning. I nervously looked it up, worried that it might be something weird or unpleasant. Fortunately, it means “both” or “two”. Since our hope was to represent both of her two cultures in her new name, the meaning made me smile.

So we had it: Lia Junlan. Yet we waited until the last minute in China to make it official. We’d hoped to find out how she came to have her Chinese name, which we were happy to learn during our visit to her orphanage. We also wanted to get to know her a bit beforehand. Once we did, we knew that such a lovely, delicate name was a wonderful fit for our beautiful, sweet girl.

Why then, don’t we just call her Lia now? Honestly, I thought that we would. But as we witnessed our new daughter lose everything in her life - save the shoes on her feet – and grieve all of those things so deeply…well, we just couldn’t bear to take one more thing away.

We still call her Jun Lan because that’s who she was. And that’s who she still is.

As she has been taking steps to trust us and to acclimate into our family, we’ve been trying out her new name little by little. But instead of subtracting or substituting names, we are simply adding.

Lia Junlan, we are your family. LiLi Joo-won, we are here for you. MeiMei Junlan, we love you.

Someday she may choose to be known as LiLi, MeiMei, Lia, Junlan or some similar (or not so similar) combination. But we know one thing for sure. Regardless of what she is called, she will always be a beautiful little sister, a bringer of good news, and an orchid of God’s kingdom.

THAT is who she is.