For today’s post, Ivy’s friend Karen (previously a blogging virgin!) has graciously agreed to share the story of how she and her Caucasian husband crafted a name for their daughter that blends both her Chinese and Caucasian heritage.
I was born in the LA suburbs, where I was one of only a dozen or so Asians in a high school of over 2,100 students. Later, I attended UCLA and enjoyed being in a more diverse setting, both as a student and during the 3 years I worked there. At one point in college I remember consciously deciding that I was only interested in Asian guys, thinking that might simplify things somehow?!?! Several unrequited crushes later, I found myself having feelings for Andy, a purely platonic guy friend of three years - and one of the whitest guys I knew! And I mean "whitest" literally - he turns pink just THINKING about the sun. 15 years later, we're married and have a 2.5 year old daughter named...drum roll please...Lee-Shing Van Horn.
Our thinking was simple: since she is half Chinese, she should have a half-Chinese name! We also thought it would be cool to name her Lee-Shing because Lee is my surname, and as most of you probably know, in Chinese names the surname comes first. Even though in pinyin the name is technically spelled Xing, we felt strongly about spelling it Shing, to make it more pronounceable (unlike my Chinese middle name)
Ironically, we spent time defending the idea to my Chinese immigrant mother. She named me Karen because she thought I needed an "American" name. After spending considerable time studying issues of race during my short-lived stint as a PhD student, I have always felt strongly that "American" culture does not equal white mainstream culture. American culture is incredibly diverse, and Andy and I wanted to reinforce that by giving Shing an ethnically diverse name. We also liked that Chinese names have direct translations, so it would be easy to give Shing a name with meaning - in contrast to me being named Karen "because it sounded good" to my parents, and "hiding" my ethnicity in my seldom-used Chinese middle name.
We suspect that when Shing is a teenager, she might hate us for giving her a "weird name." We call her Shing, because if we have a 2nd child (knock on wood), we'll also name him/her "Lee-[first name]." Maybe he/she will hate us too, but at least they'll have an older sibling to sympathize with. They'll just have to rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to go by the name "Lee."
In the end, we did decided not to give Shing a middle name. After all, with a hyphenated first name and a Dutch two-word last name, it just seemed to be bordering on child abuse!
My Asian Heritage says "Way to go!" to Karen and Andy! Do any of you have stories to share of naming negotiations - and the results?
*Post-script: Although there might not be a lot of Asian names on it, one of our favorite online baby-naming resources is The Baby Name Wizard.
Do you have any adoption stores that you'd like to share - pre, post, or currently ongoing? Laura's story made me all teary, it was so beautiful...so I'll be sure to keep a tissue handy.
