One of the first things I did (after buying pink shoes and cute dresses, of course), was try to decide on a name. Names are a big deal to me. I love names that have a story or purpose behind them. From the time Beau and I were pregnant with our first child, our girl name has been Naomi. There are many reasons I love that name, and it holds a lot of significance to me, and overall I just think it's lovely. Obviously with three boys in tow, we've never had the chance to use it. I knew I wanted it to somehow be a part of her name.
Her Chinese name translated means Autumn Elegance or Elegant Autumn. It's a beautiful name and I loved it the moment I heard it. Plus, Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. We later learned that August 15 (her birthday) is the mid-Autumn festival, one of the three largest Chinese celebrations in the year. She was likely given the name due to the timing of her birth. From what we know, she was given the name by her caretakers in the orphanage/healing home, not her birth parents.
In order to preserve part of her Chinese name, we decided on Naomi Autumn Lewis. When she is older, she may want to be called Autumn to identify more with her original name. I'm fine with either. By giving her both names, she can have that option. Since she was an orphan, she does not have a family name, so she was given the last name of Zhou (which means city/area/all encompassing, etc). In Chinese, the last name comes first and zhou is actually pronounced almost like "jo". We didn't know that initially, so we would pronounce it Zhoo, which the boys thought sounded like "zoo". So we started calling her Zoo. We call her zoo, nay nay, ya ya, Naomi, and sister. She's going to be so confused when she gets here and we are referring to her as multiple names.
Recently, during Sunday School, we were studying the story of Ruth and Naomi. I was reminded that Naomi means, "pleasant". And from what we can tell from the few interactions we've had with her, the name seems fitting. She is reserved, good natured, and well... pleasant. Time will tell if it really does reflect her nature. But for now "Pleasant Autumn" (Her English name) and "Elegant Autumn" (her Chinese name) seem pretty complimentary to me.