What's in a name?

Jeremy here ... no really this *is* Jeremy. Up until now most of the blog posts have been made by Kim, my ghost writer.

But it is time for me to chime in. I think it's time I give a little background to this boy we call Jonathan, and how we settled on this name, and (you've all been in suspense, right?) what will his name be when he comes home?

When we started talking about adopting (around October last year) we immediately began to include Amanda, Tyler, Jordan, and Ben in our conversations. Believing that our adopted son would not come to us through random chance, we started to pray for the boy who would one day become part of our family. One evening, Amanda said a prayer that included "God bless anonymous ..." it was right around then that we knew that this boy needed a name.

The name Jonathan was Kim's pick. It was only fair. With all of our pregnancies, Kim and I had a simple deal. If the baby was a girl, Kim got to choose the name. If the baby was a boy, I got to pick. With 3 boys and 1 girl, Kim really got a bad deal. (As if this whole pregnancy thing wasn't inequitable enough!)

So, Kim chose the name Jonathan. Kim knew that Jonathan means "gift of God," and that seemed more than appropriate! We didn't think of it at the time, but the name Jonathan also brings to mind the brave and godly young prince found in the Bible's book of 1 Samuel. Jonathan and the yet-to-be-king David loved eachother like brothers, and they swore friendship to eachother, and eachother's descendents, forever... very much like Jonathan will become a part of our family forever.

That's all well and good, but Jonathan is hardly an Asian name, and our boy is going by the moniker Li Futing at the moment. What will his name be when he joins us here in the U.S.?

In the short term, we're going to keep on calling him Futing, his given name. (Remember, in Chinese the family name comes first .. so Li is his "last" name.) At least for starters... the boy is going to have a lot to adjust to. Over time, we will introduce him to his european name.

We have learned that "Futing" is really two Chinese characters juxtaposed: "Fu" and "Ting." Fu means good fortune; blessings; happiness and "Ting" means a sudden peal of thunder.

His legal name will be Jonathan Futing Shafer ... a "gift of God" and a "happy and lucky sound of thunder." Sounds like a great name for a boy to me!