Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Name Game

Our little boy in China already has a name, Yun Xi.   If he wants, we'll call him that exclusively, but I realize that forever spelling your name and instructing people on pronunciation, might get tiresome.   Case in point, our little Cholita.  As it turns out, this year she has another little girl with her American name in her class  and to avoid confusion,  the teachers have taken to calling Cholita by her Chinese name.  The problem is, they never get it quite right and Cholita comes home grumpy saying, "They called me Chee today!" or "They called me Chew!"  Lyle jokingly told her to say her Chinese name slowly and then spell it for them, "It's Cho.  Q-I-U  Cho."  That should clear up any confusion!

So, as much as we plan to keep our little guy's name a part of who he is, we realize that an American name can come in handy.  Unfortunately, we struggle somewhat with names.  We struggle especially with boy names.   We haven't had to stretch our boy-naming muscles for 16 years, so we're pretty out of shape and definitely out of the loop regarding what's cool and what's not.   So, I'd love to hear your opinions.   What are some great boy names that are not too weird, not too blah?  And if I'm brave about it, I might list some of the names we've been considering.  We haven't gotten the best reception with them, which makes me think we're more clueless than I even realized.

13 comments:

Mom2Six said...

I like the names Levi, Ethan, Nathan, and Eli.

Katie said...

I really love the name Casch, if I ever had another boy I'd name him that. I also like:

Gabe, Evan, Connor, Owen, Carter, Chase, Brody, Cole, Carson, Blake and Cooper :)

Eileen said...

Katie,

You actually mentioned one of our top boy names......one our family said we should NOT name him, so thanks for the affirmation that we're not too off the wall! Or at least if we are then you are too!

Terynn said...

Seriously, if I were to have another male child (miracle) and the hubs would allow me sole naming rights (miracle), I would name a child either: Beau, Dax or Jameson.

And now you know why God won't allow more children to be born into my life. HAHA

Have fun. I love the name game. :D

CSIowa said...

Can someone explain to me why Chinese people weren't fired from the job of transliterating Chinese as soon as they decided to pay no attention to what sounds the letters actually represent in any western language that I've encountered? I mean, I thought the point of transliteration was for us ignorant folk to be able to pronounce their names. This phenomenon has always mystified me.

Good luck with your name! We've always liked to scan the Bible dictionary for ours. It gives you something to do when Sunday school gets boring.

~T~ said...

I love to play the name game, especially for someone else's kid!
I think you said his Chinese name had something to do with the emperor's seal? So, looking for imperial names, Eric means Always Ruler, and is a normal name, but not too popular right now. Ryan means King, as do Basil and Kingsley. So does Leroy, but I wouldn't recommend that, personally. Brendan and Vlad both mean Prince. Oh, and Ronan means Little Seal. I know, different seal...
See, I just have too much fun with names. Good luck choosing!

Jen Bay said...

I'm no help... but I can't wait to see what you pick... obviously you have done well at least four times...

Julie said...

Just throwin' "Owen" out there!! ;)

Blaine said...

"Blaine" is always a good choice. :-)

Blaine said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eileen said...

Blaine is a great name, but I would worry he'd be called to be Bishop.

Anonymous said...

Ronan/Ronin - sounds mature, will grow with him and has a certain ring to it.

*Translation: Samurai without a master* Sounds british but is actually Japanese. I just like the sound of it : )

Tammy said...

Hugh votes for Seth! Or Abel-you know, Adam's brothers. Silly Hugh.