Friday, October 3, 2008

Ren Li Walter W.


Tonight at last, we named our son. We have decided to call him Ren Li Walter W.

Ren is part of his Chinese name (Zhengren), Li has special historical significance for him and Walter is in honour of Paul's dad.

We were conflicted about settling on this name despite loving the sound of it. These are the Mandarin pronunciations of the Chinese characters for his names, the names we saw on his proposal and immediately took to. However, once it occurred to us that the names he was actually called would be pronounced differently in his Cantonese-speaking orphanage, we fell into indecision. We like the Cantonese pronounciations and knew that they would be more accurate for him, but we were already hooked on Ren Li. Finally, after a lot of grade-school scribbling on notepads and pondering, we decided to go with what felt right to us.

We had a little celebration tonight in honour of our son. When Paul, Claire and I were in the Okanagan last fall, we bought a special bottle of wine from Red Rooster Winery in Naramata, with the intention of sharing it when we received the referral for our second child. This week was so hectic that today was our first opportunity to celebrate with this wine. As it turned out, I'm glad we waited until tonight because it was nice to be able to toast him using the name we had decided upon. To Ren!

9 comments:

Kim said...

YEAH!!!!
I am soooo HAPPY for you ...
Ren is a wonderful name and the meaning is soooo special..
I can not wait to follow along on your journey..
Hugs...

Auntie Kelley said...

Molly,
I'm turning into a big cry baby again reading your blog. The name Ren is beautiful...a great choice.

Rae said...

A beautiful name for your beautiful son. We wish you all the happiness in the world with your family of four. Here's to Ren and to speedy travels to China!

Love,
Rae, Girard and Bryn

Waitingfaithfully said...

I love the name you have chosen for your new son . . . who just so happens to be an orphanage
"brother" to our sweet Theadora Fu Xiao (Zhu Fu Xiao) who came home to join our family this past May! "Teddi" will be four in January.

Your family is beautiful, and we are so happy for you on the addition of your new son! I look forward to following your journey (both on your blog and on the Zhuhai group), and I pray that it is a smooth one!

I love the pictures of your sweet boy. Rest assured that he is in good hands in Zhuhai while he waits for his family to come take him home!

Blessings from Texas~

Tina Winder & family

Kennedy and Jaida's mom said...

To Ren!

What a beautiful name! Congratulations again. Glad you were able to celebrate and enjoy the moment!

xox

Shea said...

I love the name Ren. It's great that you're able to incorporate his Chinese name into his Canadian name. I've never regretted doing that with Caia. Paul's dad must be touched that Walter is a middle name. I also think Claire and Ren sounds very nice together. Good choice mom and dad!

Cheers to you both.

Jednet said...

It's a strong name that celebrates his birth heritage, but that isn't too difficult for English speakers to remember or pronounce. It seems to all be happening so fast. Referral, name, oh my!

Dawn

Unknown said...

Congratulations! Welcome to the world of boys. We are so happy for you (and we like the look of your wine!).

Hi to Claire...

Teri

S x 4 said...

"To Ren"! Congratulations on your referral and choosing a name!

Stephanie & Steve & Shaelyn (5 y/o)
(home from China for just over a year)