What's In A Name

Naming our children has always been challenging for us. I feel such pressure to pick just the right name, even though I know that no matter what we pick, once we start calling the child by name, we won't be able to imagine ever naming them something else. We deliberated over each child's name for a long time. Rachel means "a lamb" and is from the Old Testament. It was Pete's Grandmother's middle name. Rachel's middle name is the same as my sister's - Lynn. Sarah's name means "princess" and is also from the Old Testament. We knew two young ladies whose birthdays were near Sarah's due date (which had been Christmas) and both teased us we should name her after them - so we did - Sarah Nicole. James means "successor" and was a New Testament Book of the bible. I had trouble sleeping one night late in my pregnancy and was praying for a family in distress as I was reading the book of James. The next day we all agreed on the name James. James, and the rest of the kids, have now memorized the first chapter of James. James always starts the recitation with "James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ..." I love that. His middle name is "David" - Pete's father's first name. We didn't think my father's first name, Dean, left the image with James we were intending. Mark's name means "mighty warrior". Some of you that know him are probably smiling right now... It is also a New Testament book of the bible. His middle name is "Dean" and it is perfect. "Mark Dean Aldrich" flows off of the tongue quite quickly when needed! Anna means "graceful". We had seriously considered the name "Grace" before coming to Anna. In the New Testament book of Luke, Anna was the old woman who spent her days at the temple where Mary and Joseph brought baby Jesus and recognized baby Jesus for who He was. Our Anna loved hearing her name in the Christmas story this year. Her middle name "Mei" means beautiful in Chinese. Our first exchange student from China was named Mei Ling. My mother-in-laws middle name is "Mae". My middle name (and my mother and grandmother's) is Ann. We did not keep any of her Chinese name - even though it is a fun name. RuYi is a greeting on Chinese New Year that means "everything go well with you." We have joked that she thought it meant "everything will always go your way!" So, we come to our new son. We previously posted about our decision to name him Joshua. Joshua means "Jehovah Saves" and is a book in the Old Testament. It wasn't until the day after we decided on "Joshua" that we realized we all had a pendant with this verse on the back - Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified,do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." We just ordered that pendant for our Joshua (and a couple extra since some of us tend to misplace ours...." We are still praying about the middle name. We had considered keeping his Chinese name. The character for his given name has several meanings when I have researched it. Most of them are not meanings we would want. The most likely meaning is from the name for the country Mongolia. We are told it is a common name. One concern with keeping his given name is that it would never be pronounced or spelled correctly. Meng is actually pronounced "Mung". We are praying about either finding a Chinese name that has special significance or using a family name that we really like. We're leaning toward the latter. Hopefully we'll be ready to post it when we get our letter of acceptance and can post our pictures! Your prayers for him to like his new name and understand its significance would be appreciated. We are hoping to get our letter of acceptance by the beginning of April. Yesterday, we heard of a family that logged in their paper work exactly a month ahead of us that received their letter of acceptance. We know God's timing will be perfect and we have much to do while we wait!