Names

As parents, we didnt have much a difficulty in choosing the children's English and Chinese names. For Caleb, coming up with his name was a miracle as I thought of the name and even his surname before I even met CT. So when I was pregnant with Caleb at 6 weeks, both CT and I knew that it would be a boy.

As for his Chinese name, we wanted something to do with joy so that he would grow up being joyful. So at an instant, we thought of "Jie le" as the word, "Jie" goes with "Jie chu" which means, outstanding. And "le" means joy. And when pieced together with the surname, it sounded good. Moreover, it does sound like "Caleb".So we didnt have any disagreements or much options to choose from. It was quite spontaneous.

For Danielle, it was tougher to choose. In my mind, I wanted her name to start with "D" since Caleb and CT both starts with "C". I wanted the next child to follow the same letter as me! So when we found out that the second one was a "girl", I had a few names to choose from. Some names which I thought of were "Danae, Desiree, Danielle". CT didnt like the first two. So, we went for Danielle which I liked it too but struggled in my mind to give this name because I have a friend whose daughter's name is also Danielle. I wanted my second one to try to have a unique name. But after much prayer, I felt more and more comfortable with Danielle and instead, I loved it. I was also reminded of the character of Daniel in the bible and the peace he had when thrown into the lions den because of his trust in God. So, Danielle is basically a female version of Daniel.

As for her Chinese name, it also wasnt as spontaneous as Caleb's. We also had a few options. First, we wanted a name similar to Caleb's and I had in mind, "purity" for a girl's name. So, CT started looking through the Chinese dictionary for a word which sounds like "Jie" to match with Caleb. We didnt use Caleb's "Jie" because its too boyish.

So in the end, we chose "Jie Ling" as it means, "pure in spirit".

So for my children's names, we didnt consult any of our friends or parents and I am amazed at how their names came about so easily just as if God inspired us.

I believe so.