Naming Lily

During my pregnancy we chose not to find out the gender of our baby. So when Lily was born it was a complete surprise that we had a daughter. In fact, my Mom had pretty much brainwashed me into thinking our baby was a boy. A number of other people had that opinion too based on how I was carrying, the baby's heart-rate, my appearance and how I picked up napkins :) We had both boy and girl names lined up, but for a boy there was one clear winner, while we weren't as decided on a girl's name.

When Lily arrived we took one look at her and discounted some of our top name choices. They just didn't fit. Friday night we decided to sleep on it and name her on Saturday after getting a little rest. So that evening she was our "baby Wong". Lillian had been on our list and my Mom made a comment on Friday night that she looked like a Lily. We kept trying on other names, but kept coming back to Lily. Then on Saturday morning my brother Eric called to tell me that he had just thought of a great name -- yup, Lily. That conversation pretty much sealed it for me and when Gordon arrived we agreed - she was definitely our Lily.

Now we just needed to finalize her middle name. It is a Chinese tradition for the paternal grandparents to choose a name for the child. So we turned to Gordon's parents to help us out here. We asked for a name that would capture the idea that on the darkest
day of the year (the winter solstice), she brought light into our lives and each day after that was better than the last. After some discussion they suggested "Man-Ching" and we loved it. Man means 'intelligent, clever, quick' and Ching refers to 'the blue sky seen right after dawn that signifies a great day'. Together, they mean 'a rapidly approaching future of great potential and joy'. Not bad huh? Lily shares the 'Man' part of her name with her two cousins, Valora and Sera. Gordon's Mom drew out Lily's Chinese name for us with MS paint - thank you MaMa!

So there you go: Lillian Man-Ching Wong. Now if I could just get around to changing MY last name....