Tuesday, September 7, 2010

What's in a name?

I love the name Sophia. We had a hard time choosing between Olivia and Sophia 11 years ago, and since we went with Olivia, Sophia was our “girl” name had we been matched with a girl when we were adopting Jackson and then again with Elijah. When we decided to adopt again I said “I want my Sophia!!!”

We didn’t have a middle name we both liked though and decided to wait until we learned her Chinese name to see if we thought it would work with Sophia. When we learned her name is An Hong Mei, we decided to name her Sophia Meichele, since my middle name is Michele. We love the idea of keeping part of her Chinese name in her new name. We also learned that An is the family name given to all the children in orphanages in the city of Xi’An. Hong means red and Mei means plum blossom, since she was born in December and that’s when they are in bloom.

Our Sophia also has another name: Libby. All of the Starfish babies are given English names once they arrive at the foster home. We think it’s a darling name, but since we already call Olivia “Livvie”, there’s no way we can make Libby work!

It does get a little confusing when we’re talking about our little one though. The boys call her “Baby Sophia” and don’t even know who we’re talking about if we call her Libby. Then there’s Sophia, the volunteer who loves Libby so much, whom we call Big Sophia. Not nearly as confusing as I’m sure it’s going to be for her when we get her and start calling her Sophia!

Till next time,
Karee

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