When we started searching for a name, Danielle was high on the list for 2 reasons. Firstly, it's the female version of Daniel and secondly, ND has this "not so secret" wish that he'll have 4 kids and in his usual "corny" way, he said that since his name starts with "B" and my starts with "G", just nice, there's 4 alphabets in between "B" and "G" for his 4 kids. Caleb used up "C", so the next child's name should start with "D". When we ploughed through all the female names starting with "D", Danielle was the only one that we thought sounded nice and was meaningful to us. Then we decided to poll the audience and we got a whole lot of negative responses coz it's not an easy name to pronounce and we had all kinds of different pronounciations and some sounded really bad. So after a while, I admit, we succumbed to peer pressure and decided that perhaps we shouldn't name her Danielle coz nobody seems to be able to pronounce the name properly.
So we had to go back to looking at all the names. I tell you, this naming biz can be really tough, especially when we have a few criterias. It must sound nice, it must be meaningful and it has to be biblical. By now, ND has decided to relax his naming criteria, and say that we don't need to select a name starting with "D". Then some time later, he relaxed his criteria further by saying that it can start with any alphabet. Then I remembered from a long time ago, I've always had the name Sarah in my mind. Sarah's name means princess and in the bible, and the character Sarah was faithful till old age and was an ancestor of Jesus. She is said to be very beautiful and was a woman of faith. But I've never thought that I'll name my daughter Sarah simply coz ND's surname is Lee. People from our generation would remember the very catchy and highly successful pound cake advertisement from Sara Lee. I say it's a highly successful advert coz till today, people of my generation can still sing the jingle "谢谢你Sara Lee!"(Thank you Sara Lee).
As we pondered over the names that we were considering, somehow we decided (regardless of how successful the pound cake advert is), we'll still use the name Sarah. Of course we created an initial uproar with our peers and I even received a Sara Lee pound cake when a friend visited us at the hospital after Sarah's birth but after a while, the uproar died down. And now, when we look back, we think the name Sarah really suits her coz she really behaves like she's the princess at home!
As for her name 乐宣 (Le Xuan), we decided on the character 乐 (Le/ Joy) first coz we believe she'll be a joy to have and we hope that she'll bring joy to others. The 2nd character was a little tricky and we narrowed down to a few options. On Xmas morning, (the day she's supposed to arrive), I woke up and was lying in bed wondering whether she'll be coming that very day. And somehow the song "Joy to The World" kept playing in my head. And as I sang the song to myself, I felt inspired to name her 乐宣. 宣 (xuan) means to proclaim or announce. I felt that Christmas season is a time of joy for Christians as we celebrate the birth of Jesus. And as with the song "Joy To The World", it was also a time to proclaim the joy we have in Jesus Christ. So 乐宣 literally means to proclaim joy. And that's our hope for her that she'll be able to proclaim the joy of our Lord to people around her.
