I am besieged by names. For several months now, hardly a day has passed without a barrage of names being fired at me for consideration. At this point, assuming the ultrasounds are accurate, twin boys will be lovingly placed into our waiting arms this month. Our naming enterprise is decidedly in the boy camp (and woe betide if either of them comes out a girl), but my preference is to simply wait until they are born and call them Baby 1 and Baby 2 or “the babies” until we get a sense of their personalities, but their mother has vetoed this idea. And so, the name game is in full swing.
You can sink a good many hours into naming a child. With our daughter, I waited until nearly the end to settle on Reina. There are endless websites with lists of popular names, cute names, celebrity names, and exotic-sounding names. There are name consultants you can hire to research your family, your preferences, and your lifestyle. On social networks like Facebook, it is easy to solicit the advice of friends (my favorite nomination was Pete and Repete). All of this has led to many a discussion with friends, family, and my ever-so-patient and very pregnant wife. So far, we have one maybe and a possible reserve, but I’m still holding out for those perfect names that will complement our eclectic family.
Its not that I think of a name as a brand or that my child must have an absolutely unique name (Reina is quite common in Spanish-speaking circles), it is about finding a name that has a nice ring to it and doesn’t put that child in jeopardy of being ridiculed any more than necessary. Trust me: With a last name like Lay, you need a solid first name and a good sense of humor. Their names must also be relatively easy to pronounce all over the world, especially in China. Chris may look like a simple first name, but I’m often referred to across Asia as Kreest and frequently receive emails addressed to Christ.
In an effort to give their names some family history, I dug out my copy of Southern Grace: A Story of Mississippi Saints, a book one of my cousins wrote documenting nearly 300 years of Lays in the USA. In it, I can trace back through multiple generations of names like Deshler, Urdel, and Elza. I’m quite familiar with these names, but also aware that I have never met anyone beholding these titles lately.
It took my family nine generations to cross the continental US until I was born on the coast of Oregon. I married a first-generation American who escaped the Killing Fields of Cambodia as a child orphan. Naturally, our daughter was born in Shenzhen and her twin
brothers will be born in Beijing. There is history in our mobile clan, and their names aught to hint to the global nature of our family. So don’t be surprised if, in a couple of months, you see photos of the twins on the beijingkids New Arrivals page with names like Ree and Dee. I’ll rest easy knowing I found the perfect names. There is no way anyone could make fun of my Lay boys.
This article is excerpted from beijingkids September 2012 issue. View it in PDF form here or contact distribution@beijing-kids.com to find out where you can pick up your free copy.
