What's in a name?

We had enough trouble naming our first born. We were all set with a boy's name - Ethan Bennett - but hadn't finalized the girl's selection to any fewer than two or three. On the way to the hospital, K said to me, "So, about that name conversation we need to finish..." As soon as she popped out, the doctor said, "Congratulations, it's a girl! What's her name?" My response: "Ummm, can we get back to you on that in a few hours?" You'd think that after nine months of pregnancy, you'd have this important decision made.

Now fast forward to present day, where we are in the 20th month of this "pregnancy", and would you believe we still don't have a name for this child?!?! The list of possible candidates keeps getting longer instead of shorter. There are two or three favorites on the list (no, I'm not going to share them - we don't want anyone else to influence this decision!), but we haven't talked about any of them seriously. And we'd like to keep the Chinese name as the middle name, so there is the whole "how will it flow?" factor that can't really be factored in until Referral Day. The Chinese name will most likely have been given to the child by the SWI (orphanage), and the name is usually based on some trait of the baby. The last name is usually the same for all children in the SWI. Sometimes the last name is the orphanage director's name; sometimes they give all children who arrive in the same year one last name and then use a different last name the next year.

All I know, as we wait for the December matches any day now, is that if China matches babies with families at the same pace as the past few months, we could get a match in 8-12 weeks, and I don't feel any closer to this important decision than I did 20 months ago. And, once we get the referral (match), we only have a few days to submit visa applications, etc. that require the baby's name to be declared.

In the meantime, here is a fun website to play with to see the popularity of names over the years: http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html. If you see any good ones, please send them along!!!!