How Xinyi got her name

We've had Xinyi with us in the outside world for 17 days and a few minutes, and actually 19 days now -- it often takes me a few days to actually finish these posts as we take care of our newborns needs :).  While she was still snuggled up inside, Shane and I spent many hours talking about and ranking and re-ranking potential names.

One of my good friends asked me if we called our baby Xinyi or Clara.  The answer is both!  Clara is Xinyi's first name and we love it!  We also love her middle name, which is her chinese name.  We always hoped to expose our baby to mandarin, and always wanted her to have something tangible to ground her half Taiwanese identity in, and what better way to do so than with her name!  So we use both names interchangeably with her and for the blog, I just like using Xinyi :).

Choosing her first name was a fun adventure.  We wanted something unique, but easily pronounceable, that had a good meaning.  Shane also loves classic names.  Shane put the name Clara on the list early on, and after lots of other options came and went, Clara became our favorite.  We also watched a lot of Doctor Who early on during pregnancy and before, and Clara is the name of our favorite Doctor co-traveler :).

For her middle name, I really wanted Clara to have a chinese name.  I have a chinese name, and it is also my middle name, and it has been a great joy and very helpful to have in life.  Shane was gracious enough and excited with me to have a Chinese middle name for Clara.  We asked my parents to help us find a good name for her.  It's quite a ordeal to find a suitable name with the right characters and tones and number of strokes in the written characters.  Thankfully, my parents and grandparents were up to the task and suggested the characters for Xinyi.

The pronunciation of Xinyi is "Shin-Yee" and the loosely translated meaning is someone who brings joy.   However, each character has its own meaning.  The character for xin actually translates more into fragrant aroma (the same word used in the bible verse 2 Corinthians 2:15-16) and yi meaning joy and harmony.  The more literal translation of her name means (we hope) that Xinyi would be a person who being around would bring a fragrant aroma of joy and harmony.  She certainly has done so for us :).

Here's Xinyi, her daddy's birthday present!

And she has a turtle on her butt!