Her Name...

Picking out a name:

With both of our boys, we waited to share their names until they were born. This was twofold... For one, what if we saw them and said, "Hmm, I really don't think he looks like a (name)." The second is, we really didn't want to hear everyone's opinion about the name. So, on the day both of our boys were born, we were excited to announce their names!!

It had to be different for her. We finally decided that we would come up with a final name for her on the day we got her referral and would share it then with family and friends.

For over a year I have found it a fun past time to look up girl names for her. Early on in our name choosing we found that in the Chinese culture picking a name is a HUGE ordeal. Often times the family will consult even a fortune teller.

We, of course, would not go to that extreme, but given that the name and the meaning of the name is extremely important, we wanted to hold true to the Chinese tradition.

We found names that we liked a lot, but the meanings of those names never seemed to fit or work right.

When I looked up Chinese names, I found a "beautiful" name that I liked. "Mei" (pronounced 'May'). It means "beautiful." I was drawn to that name, and as we have had a long journey of waiting, the verse Eccles. 3:11 was always on my heart..."He has made everything beautiful in its time." Songs like "In His Time," "Beautiful, Beautiful" and "Beautiful Things" were always singing in my heart too! When I saw that name and the meaning behind it, I knew that it needed to be part of her name. Tim agreed!

The first name was a little more difficult. There are so many cute girls names!!

While looking up one of the girls names that we liked (but didn't particularly care for the meaning), we found the name "Ellie." I thought, that's a cute name!!! I saw some of the names that were associated with it, and two of the top names were "Eleanor and Elaine." "Eleanor" was my grandmother's name and "Elaine" is my sister's middle name!! We also saw that the meaning of "Ellie" is "light." What a beautiful meaning. We knew that we had settled on the perfect name for her!

The pieces of the puzzle fit, and on the day we found out about our precious daughter, we were excited to share with our family the news about "Ellie Mei!!"

So there you have it, "Ellie Mei..." our "beautiful light!!" May her life reflect the glory of the One who perfectly made her, and may she be His light in this world- shining for all to see!!