When we adopted Sarena we were completely lost when it came to deciding what to do with her Ch*nese name and what to do for a middle name. Our desire was to talk to her about it and let her help us decide, but since that wasn’t an option, we chose her first name based on the meaning. Then, because her Ch*nese name had a “bad” English meaning, we did away with it altogether. We went ahead and kept her surname and chose a new Chi*nese name. You have to settle on a name before you travel and actually meet your child.

We talked and decided we would just change her name when she came home if she and us felt like it needed to be. The time has come to change her name from Sarena Yang LiXue to Sarena Jolee. From the very beginning she wandered why she didn’t have a middle name from someone in our family. She is also very bothered by the fact that no one can pronounce her middle names correctly.

Sarena has been very insightful in naming the boys too. I really wanted to use Lee (that is both of my grandpa’s middle names) for one of our sons. Li pronounced like our Lee is a Ch*nese name only used for girls and means pretty or beautiful. S said “Isaac will appreciate it if you don’t keep his Ch*nese name and don’t name him Lee!”. That brings us to the boys final names….

“Max” will be Isaac Preston and “Buddy” will be Theodore Biao. We will keep Theo’s Ch*nese name because we have called him that for so long and Biao is the only one of his 3 names that he goes by.