Names

We didn’t put a lot of process or structure around how we picked the names Miranda and Eleanor. We discussed possible names for a couple of months during the pregnancy and came up with our two names in plenty of time for their birth. We wanted to avoid names that were trendy, and we didn’t want their names to start with the same letter. We considered trying the thing where we each make a list of our top ten names to see if there is an overlap, but we never got around to it. Instead, every now and then we would bring up a name to see what the other person thought. Many names were rejected because one or the other of us had some weird mental association with the name, like if we knew someone with that name. We did seem to prefer names that were a little off the beaten path. Both Agnes and I have liked the fact that our own names are recognizable but relatively obscure. In fact, Agnes would check the Baby Name Wizard (Java required) to see when the names were in fashion. The less common, the better. Our own names have the dubious distinction of each being ranked 9th on a survey of unsexiest names (go to the bottom of that page to see the list).

After we had our names, we also needed to figure out who would get which name. Some people seem to wait until they see the baby to decide how they want to name them. We didn’t. We figured that even though the girls would be minutes apart in age (in our case it turned out to be just one minute), the older girl would probably always have her name said first. We decided to combat this by giving the younger one the name that started with a letter that’s earlier in the alphabet. That way, some people would at least say “Eleanor and Miranda”.

When it came to the girls’ Chinese names, we knew that we had no idea what we were doing. My parents had asked long ago to give our kids their Chinese names, so I reminded them that they were responsible for coming up with these names as the due date came close. My mom deferred to my dad, who ultimately came up with two names.

Miranda Chinese name is Huangchien. In Chinese, it’s written as:

The first character is our last name, Chen. The second character, Huang, is not the same character as Agnes’ maiden name, though it has the exact same pronunciation. It’s a homonym. This character means “emperor”. The last character is a relatively obscure Chinese character. The official pinyin, or spelling, of the character should be “qian”, but the pronunciation sounds more like “chien” to me. In a very literal sense, this character is used to describe the north-south paths that divide rice patties. It has taken on a less strict meaning, describing the land itself. The combination of “huang” and “chien” produces a very serious and weighty name. When my dad wrote me, he said that he picked names that will ensure the girls would have a good future.

Since many Chinese characters have the same pronunciation, there is sometimes a practice of choosing names which are essentially puns. In the case of Miranda’s name, the three characters Chen Huang Chien has a secondary meaning. “Chen Huang” (written with different characters) was one of the names that Buddha had taken. Another word pronounced as “Chien” refers to a note or message that one receives after praying at a temple. With this combination, Chen Huang Chien can mean something like “message from Buddha”.

Eleanor’s Chinese name is Huangyu, which is written as:

Their names share the same second character Huang. It’s a common practice that all sisters would share a common character in their names, and all brothers would share a common (but different) character. Albert and my Chinese names share a common character, but are completely different from Suephy’s Chinese name. Effy and Agnes’ Chinese names share a common character, but are completely different from Max’s Chinese name.

The last character in Eleanor’s name means “feather”. My mom said that her name is not as serious or weighty as Miranda’s, and she thought the name was much prettier. In terms of secondary meanings, there is another character “Yu”, which means “gift”. In this secondary meaning, Chen Huang Yu, can mean “gift from Buddha”.

It was my mother’s recommendation that the names be written as Huangchien and Huangyu instead of “Huang-Chien” and “Huang-Yu” or “Huang Chien” and “Huang Yu”. She was hoping that these Chinese names would be Miranda and Eleanor’s middle names, and as such, it’s easier to have a single, unhyphenated middle name. We ended up using Agnes’ maiden name “Huang” as their middle names, but fortunately, this ended up being part of their Chinese names anyway.

The last thing my father mentioned about their Chinese names has to do with the number of strokes it takes to write the characters. “Good” names are made up of characters where the sum of the strokes for all of the characters equals some lucky number. I don’t know what makes a number lucky, but Miranda and Eleanor’s names both are written with the exact same number of strokes, and apparently that number is a lucky one.

Agnes and I would never have come up with all this. We’re glad that all we needed to pick was “Miranda” and “Eleanor”.