The Name Game

We don't have a final name picked out yet, but we do have some finalists for a first name. Our favorites are Kaden, Matthew, and Jacob. For the middle name, we are going to use a Chinese name and have enlisted the help of Rob's Mom to pick that out.

In Taiwan, you pick a baby's name based on the date and time they are born to get a very auspicious name for the baby. The name has to have the right number of strokes in the character and work well with the birth time. (For those of you not familiar with the Mandarin Chinese language, they are characters instead of letters and the characters are built of individual parts- similar to letters- that result in the meaning of the character).

There is actually a very involved method in determining this, and you have to consult with the "fortune tellers" at the temples for help. The "fortune tellers" are not the kind of people that read palms and card like you would probably imaging a fortune teller would, but I don't know what else to call them. They use the personal data of the individuals and the lunar calendar to determine good dates for weddings, good dates for moving into a new house, names for babies, and many other things. This is how we picked our wedding date and the date for our wedding banquet in Taiwan, and that has worked out very well for us!

When Baby Kaden, Matthew or Jacob is born, Rob's Mom will find several good Chinese names for the baby for us to choose from. The final first name choice will depend on the final Chinese name choice so he has a good, complete name. We want a Chinese middle name that sounds good, has a good meaning, and is easy to pronounce for my friends and families who are not familiar with Chinese :-) We do have a favorite first name right now, but I reserve the right to change my mind!!!



This is the character for Chang that is our name (there are a couple of characters that can be used for Chang, depending on the family and location).